Excuse the sentimentality but Patti Smith wrote this song as an elegy for a previous Pope, so it seems a suitable epitaph for Francis, who died today.

And whatever you – we – may think of the Catholic Church as an institution, this is surely a time to mourn the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion people around the world

Patti Smith wrote Wave after the death in September 1978 of John Paul I after only 33 days in the papacy, and recorded it for her eponymous album, released the following year.

Charming and naive in equal measure, and spoken with a childlike sense of wonder, it’s an imagined conversation between herself and the Pope.

Although it begins with reference to another figure walking on a beach – Jesus at the Sea of Galilee, perhaps – its central subject is the image of the Pope’s characteristic wave from the Vatican balcony: the one we see on TV at Christmas and Easter (coincidentally the title of Smith’s previous album).

Wave would not be my favourite Smith album – it’s probably her weakest – but then again nothing could match Horses, which remains pretty much my all-time favourite by anyone.

It’s her most conventional collection, thanks in part to Todd Rundgren’s clean and commercial production sound, and it would be the last album she made before marrying and retiring from record-making for nine years.

In some ways it can be heard as a farewell to the music business, from Frederick, a love song to her husband-to-be, Fred “Sonic” Smith of the MC5, to a cover of The Byrds’ bitter appraisal of fame, So You Want to Be (A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star).

Patti would spend the next nine years raising her children, Jesse and Jackson, before returning in 1988 with Dream Of Life.