Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses.

Called the “punk poet laureate”, Smith fused rock and poetry in her work. Her most widely known song is “Because the Night“, which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen. It reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978 and number five in the UK. In 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

On November 17, 2010, Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids. The book fulfilled a promise she had made to her former long-time partner Robert Mapplethorpe. She placed 47th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Artists published in December 2010 and was also a recipient of the 2011 Polar Music Prize.

Patricia Lee Smith was born on December 30, 1946, at Grant Hospital in Chicago to Beverly Smith, a jazz singer turned waitress, and Grant Smith, a machinist at a Honeywell plant. The family was of part Irish ancestry and Patti was the eldest of four children, with siblings Linda, Kimberly, and Todd. When Smith was four, the family moved from Chicago to Germantown, Philadelphia, before heading to Pitman, New Jersey and later to The Woodbury Gardens section of Deptford Township, New Jersey.

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