Last Saturday, Patti Smith appeared at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, playing a Bob Dylan song in the Literature prize recipient's absence.
Mid-way through the song, she appeared to forget the words and faltered, re-starting after apologising and her performance was roundly acclaimed.
However, it seems that she's a little harder on herself about the whole experience, as she has written about it in this week's New Yorker.
"After a moving speech dedicated to him was read, I heard my name spoken and I rose," she wrote. "As if in a fairy tale, I stood before the Swedish King and Queen and some of the great minds of the world, armed with a song in which every line encoded the experience and resilience of the poet who penned them.
"The opening chords of the song were introduced, and I heard myself singing. The first verse was passable, a bit shaky, but I was certain I would settle. But instead I was struck with a plethora of emotions, avalanching with such intensity that I was unable to negotiate them. From the corner of my eye, I could see the the huge boom stand of the television camera, and all the dignitaries upon the stage and the people beyond. Unaccustomed to such an overwhelming case of nerves, I was unable to continue. I hadn’t forgotten the words that were now a part of me. I was simply unable to draw them out.”
She added: "As I took my seat, I felt the humiliating sting of failure, but also the strange realization that I had somehow entered and truly lived the world of the lyrics.”
Watch the performance below:
