At an event last week in New York celebrating the 20th birthday of Democracy Now!, Patti Smith sang a stirring rendition of "Peaceable Kingdom," a song that she wrote with Tony Shanahan to memorialize Rachel Corrie, the young American activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer during a peacekeeping mission in the Gaza Strip in 2003. Smith dedicated the performance of the song to all the young people in the world working for peace, as Rolling Stone reports, and she then added a dedication for the young victims in the Oakland warehouse fire which had just occurred several days before.

Said Smith: "When you look at the pictures of them, all of them brimming with such hope, we need our young people. We pin our faith on them. They are going to make the most revolutionary changes in human history. They will continue to build peace movements, to protect our environment. And so we sing this little song for them."

She was accompanied on the song by her daughter Jesse Paris Smith on keys, and Shanahan on guitar. She then brought her friend Michael Stipe on stage for a rendition of "People Have the Power."