Patti Smith Writing Sequel to 'Just Kids'

Nick Harvey/WireImage

Patti Smith is working on a sequel to her popular and critically acclaimed memoir Just Kids. That book, which tells the story of her close friendship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won the National Book Award for nonfiction last year.

"The people's response to the book gives me an impetus to publish more," Smith told NBC New York's Niteside blog. In addition to working on a follow-up to Just Kids, the singer is also writing a mystery novel and smaller books of poetry. "I think I'll spend most of 2011 writing," she said.

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Smith did not say what the second memoir will be about, but it seems likely that it could be about her relationship with her late husband Fred "Sonic" Smith.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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