In New York, she lounges in sofas created from former bathtubs, adorned with pop gaudy colored pillows, she daydreams of diamonds before Tiffany's windows (and of the dollars they represent), desperate to get some by practicing an uninhibited hunt for millionaires and ready for anything with men just to get jewels -and money.

Both of these uprooted misfits gone away on the road of life share something else as well. A precarious existence, hard times, but also some hidden moral crack. The exhilarating encounters that New York offers to young Patti Smith do not distance her from a family cocoon that she misses : her heart stayed in New Jersey, and two compositions in Horses were inspired by her sisters Linda and Kimberly (Redondo Beach and Kimberly), which bears witness to her attachment's depth. Holly Golightly on her side never shuns champagne and adventures with men from whom she hopes to obtain the financial comfort that she’s been so desperately seeking.  But in reality, she thinks only of her younger brother Fred, the only one she really cares for, her only family and her real root, gone from Texas because of the army. Thus, anxiously awaiting news from him every day.

What interested me most in the parallel between these "Two drifters off to see the world" (Moon River with lyrics by Andy Williams and music by Henry Mancini in Breakfast at Tiffany's soundtrack), is the gap that separates these two distinct eras

that saw them born, and in which both fight to escape their destiny in order to build another one. Not mentioning of course the differences in the womens’ physical appearance and posture.  And finally, between both eras, the considerable shift that obviously occurred : no question, a world separates the wonderful,  lovely romance of Moon River from the harsh, oneiric, existential and exhilarating Free Money by Patti Smith.
A world that separates as well the late 50s-early 60 from the late 60s-early 70s.
Because the whole world changed radically during these ten years.

Thus, at first glance, Holly Golightly is the opposite of Patti Smith, being as refined, seductive, scatterbrained, superficial and glamorous as Patti Smith is cerebral, tough, androgynous, austere and radical.
But at first sight only. In fact, it is only the veneer that time passes over beings that changes them. Between the early Sixties and the early Seventies, life had become a lot tougher. The disillusionments that the Vietnam war brought had left their indelible marks on young people's mind who protested against war and corruption. Youth demanded more freedom and rebelled against the establishment, violence became a must, and at the same moment young women found that they no longer needed to rely on men for money, because they could work and were emancipated, proving every day to be ready to punch hard to keep their newly gained independance.