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THERE ARE MANY THINGS WE CAN REASONABLY expect from our musical heroes: wild thrills, profound insights. Drama. Epiphanies. Transcendence. Their skills as life coaches, however, can be a bit more hit and miss. As in so many things, Patti Smith is an exception that proves the r ule. At 75, she stands apart as a rock’n’roll icon whose ability to connect a devotion to art with a practical existence remains inspirational. “I realised, ver y early on, that there’s always a million reasons to live,” she tells MOJO’s Andrew Male, in a series of intimate and significant inter views. “I saw, as Allen Ginsberg would say, some of the best minds of my generation lose their life over accidents, mistakes, carelessness or tragedy. I just decided as a teenager that I wasn’t going to be addicted to anything, except perhaps art and love.”

This month, then, we present a kind of Histor y Of Patti Smith In 100 Objects; a gently instr uctive guide to living one’s best life that involves Ginsberg and Dylan, Burroughs and Stipe, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith’s Mosrite guitar and Patti’s own boots. “We have to celebrate being alive several times a day,” she encourages. Even as she’s cleaning out the cat litter.