Hear Patti Smith’s Moving Elegy to ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’
The world’s least likely Aqua Teen Hunger Force fan, Patti Smith, recorded a surreally sincere elegy for the goofy Adult Swim show, which will end later this month. “I’d never dreamed I’d be in Aqua Teen/13 seasons, what did it mean?” she sings plaintively to a gentle piano part. “A Master Shake, Meatwad, a floating head/and now you’re dead and it’s the end of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” The show’s series finale – officially titled “The Last One Forever and Ever (For Real This Time) (We…Mean It)” – will air on August 23rd.
While the cartoon series might be coming to an end, Smith has been busy as ever. This fall, the singer-songwriter will put out her second memoir, M Train, which follows up her critically acclaimed account of her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids. The new book will find her journeying through 18 “stations,” to fit with its title’s locomotive metaphor, beginning with her ruminating on the world in a since-closed café she used to frequent to pondering the relationship she had with her late husband, MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, among other vignettes. The book is due out October 6th.
Meanwhile, Smith is also prepping for a tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of her debut album, Horses. She’ll spend a string of dates in Europe this fall before returning to the U.S. to play in New York City on November 10th, the anniversary of both the album and the death of poet Arthur Rimbaud. Last year, Smith told Rolling Stone she’d originally hoped to release the record on Rimbaud’s birthday but a shortage of vinyl forced her to push the release date to November.
After the New York date, Smith will play a run of gigs in San Francisco in December, leading up to the New Year, before heading to Santa Cruz, California on January 2nd.