Patti was on Colbert tonight. Yeah, she still has it.

 “People have made a lot of stuff about the Horses cover. But a lot of what we do is bred on innocence. How people interpret it is up to them. I thought of myself as a poet and a performer, and so how did I dress? I didn’t have much money; I liked to dress like Baudelaire. I looked at a picture of him and he was dressed, like, with this ribbon or tie and a white shirt. I wasn’t thinking that I was going to break any boundaries. I just like dressing like Baudelaire... I know people would like to think that we got together to break boundaries of politics and gender, but we didn’t really have time for that. We were really too busy trying to pull enough money together to buy lunch.”

Clive Davis, the founder and president of Arista records, however, was appalled by the image, and pleaded with Smith to change her mind about using it. He objected to her unkempt hair, lack of make-up and man’s tie. He was also, reportedly, critical of the trace of facial hair on Smith’s upper lip. But Smith’s contract with the label afforded her complete artistic control, and she refused all of their advice, including the suggestion that the art department airbrush her ‘mustache.’ “I felt it would be like having plastic surgery or something,” she said. “I told them ‘Robert Mapplethorpe is an artist, and he doesn’t let anyone touch his pictures.’ I didn’t know that for sure, maybe he wouldn't have minded, but I would have.”