Patti Smith’s seminal debut Horses celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and to mark the occasion Smith will release a new version of the record that features several new songs. Per Pitchfork, addition to some tracks, there are also some never-before-released ones, including “Distant Fingers,” “The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game,” “We Three,” and “Snowball.” The newly remastered Horses drops October 10, but you can listen to “Snowball” now (below).
Reflecting on the album for The A.V. Club in 2005, Noel Murray wrote that “Horses was Smith’s most sublime piece of rock criticism, as energetic and self-aware as a work from French cinema’s New Wave.” Speaking with another critic, Greg Kot, in 2014, Smith herself explained, “I felt that our cultural voice, which was so magnificent through the late ’60s and early ’70s, was faltering, and there was the rise of stadium rock and glam rock and all of these different things and I felt like somebody had to save it. I didn’t think that it would be me, but I thought I could play a role. I had a strong sense of myself, and I came to say, ‘Here I am.’ I’m speaking to those like me, the disenfranchised, the mavericks. ‘Don’t lose heart, don’t give up.'”
Smith previously announced an international Horses anniversary tour, which kicks off in October (“Please join us to help celebrate the final ride of our irreverent thoroughbred,” a press release for the tour read, per Rolling Stone). In addition to playing the old hits, Smith has something new coming too: her latest memoir, Bread Of Angels, is due out November 4. You can check out the full tracklist for the Horses anniversary edition below.
