Punk godmother Patti Smith‘s landmark 1975 debut album, Horses, is getting the golden jubilee treatment. The John Cale-produced classic that introduced the world to Smith’s signature poetry-meets-punk style will be re-released on Oct. 10 by Legacy Recordings in an expanded 50th anniversary edition in a 2-LP and 2-CD format.
In addition to the original eight-track LP remastered from the original 1/4″ master tapes, the refresh will also feature a number of previously unreleased outtakes and rarities, including Smith’s 1975 RCA audition tape. In addition to such favorites as “Gloria,” “Redondo Beach,” “Birdland” and the multi-part “Land,” the re-release will feature the previously unreleased songs, including the skittering, frenetic jazz rocker “Snowball,” “Birdland (alternate take),” “Distant Fingers,” “The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game” and “We Three.”
Smith is in peak form on “Snowball,” featuring spiky guitar work from her longtime musical consigliere guitarist and co-writer Lenny Kaye and the urgent lyrics, “When it hits me I’m so amazed/ When it hits me I’m feeling crazed/ When it hits me I start to recall/ Memories flooding like a snowball running down a hill.”
The anniversary edition will also feature RCA demos of the thrilling “Gloria” and “Redondo Beach,” as well as alternate takes on “Kimberly” and “Break It Up.” The album peaked at No. 47 on the Billboard 200 in February 1976. It was inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2009 and the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2021.
In addition, on Nov. 4, Smith will publish her long-awaited memoir Bread of Angels, which is described by publisher Random House Publishing as the singer’s, “most intimate and visionary work.” In it, Smith delves into her post-WWII childhood in working class Philadelphia and South Jersey, as well her teenage years, “when the first glimmers of art and romance take hold, her rise as punk rock icon to her retreat from public life when she meets her one true love and starts a family on the shores of Lake Saint Clair, Michigan.”
The book, which also covers Smith’s marriage to late MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith — its release date is timed to fall on the anniversary of Smith’s 1994 passing — is a look at the pivotal early years when, “Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative role models as she begins to write poetry then lyrics, ultimately merging both into the songs of iconic recordings such as Horses, Wave, and Easter.”
The 288-page book is the follow-up to Smith’s National Book Award-winning 2010 memoir Just Kids documenting her relationship with artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, as well as her acclaimed 2015 follow-up, M Train.
Smith will embark on a world tour celebrating the Horses anniversary this fall, kicking off a European run on Oct. 6 in Dublin, Ireland at 3Arena before moving to North American shores starting on Nov. 10 at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. The tour is currently slated to run through a Nov. 29 show at the Met in Philadelphia. She will be joined on the tour by Kaye and another longtime band member, drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, who both played on Horses.
Listen to “Snowball” below.
The post “Patti Smith’s Landmark Debut Album ‘Horses’ 50th Anniversary Edition to Feature Outtakes, Rarities” by Gil Kaufman was published on 08/22/2025 by www.billboard.com