Patti Smith Joins Carmen Consoli on "Mio Zio"

Patti Smith joined the Sicilian singer-songwriter Carmen Consoli to perform Consoli’s “Mio Zio”(My Uncle) in Turin, Italy. The song, from Consoli’s latest album, Elettra, is a first-person narrative of a young woman who, at her uncle’s funeral, recalls the sexual abuse he inflicted on her when she was a child. Consoli’s narrator remembers how her uncle called the abuse blind man’s bluff and riding a carousel. Patti picks up on Carmen’s imagery and riffs on it brilliantly. She knows what Italy’s known for years and the rest of the world is finding out—Carmen Consoli is one of the most distinctive artists on the international scene.