Mark E. Smith was born on 5th March 1957. But let’s start where The Fall started – with the name.
His first move on forming a band was choosing a name drawn from Albert Camus, a writer who explored the absurd, the dark, and the urgent need to revolt.
The band narrowed it down to two titles – The Outsider and The Fall. The former described Smith well, but maybe too directly. “I never wanted to do anything obvious,” he once said. And so The Fall it was.
Smith’s base was Prestwich – local pubs, the streets around – but he was never confined by geography. His mind travelled far wider. Plays, ballets, surreal TV appearances, collaborations with dancers – he stretched what was possible, even from a bar stool.
He left school at sixteen, took his O Levels on acid, worked at Salford docks, and read tarot for cash. “I had psychic abilities,” he told me once, “but they weren’t much use. I mean, what point is there in knowing what’s going to happen in a year’s time? If it was the horses or something or the lottery, but it’s not, is it?”
Over the years, I interviewed him half a dozen times, argued with him, danced with him, took him to an art gallery, and ate pizza with him at Coco’s on Fountain Street.
I always admired what he achieved: thirty-plus albums with The Fall, lyrics full of surrealism, chaos, and caustic wit. He revolutionised the language of rock music.
Punk energised him but didn’t box him in. He told me, “You know, we had teddy boys in the group, I had long hair and all this shit… I was never ever into all that punk stuff or that new wave. It’s not what I was going for.”
What was he going for? “Very basic music. Very savage music with intelligent lyrics.”
His lyrics had more in common with novelists than other musicians – Céline, Arthur Machen, and H.P. Lovecraft were favourites. “I like anybody who goes against the grain of mediocre mass thought,” he once told me. Though now and then, he betrayed that mantra. His TV rants about immigration felt all too predictable.
And yes, Fall gigs could be electric – or total car crashes. Chaos was always part of the ride.
He once claimed he gave a lecture on James Joyce at Cambridge. I’m still not sure if that was real, imagined, or some kind of psychic spasm. But he did share traits with Joyce – sharp, dark humour, obsession with hometown landscapes, and a mutual dislike of dogs.
“Dogs hate me,” he told me, “and I hate them.” Asked who he’d put a bullet through, he said, “The man who invented dogs and The Face.” (The Face, if you don’t know, was a glossy 80s London magazine. Shite most of the time, in his view.)
Mark had no time for things that were all the rage. He was a regular at the Hacienda early o,n but when Madchester exploded, he moved to Edinburgh.
Interviewers were often on the receiving end of his venom. Me included. But I never took it personally. It was a test – survive the grilling and enjoy the answers.
We once talked about touring. He liked northern Europe more than the heat. “I do get homesick if I go around a lot. I get a lot of compression in my head. If it doesn’t rain for a week or two, my head starts to hurt.”
My favourite Fall era? The early 80s – Grotesque, Slates. But then Blindness in 2005 was just as vital. Whenever I brought up the ever-changing line-ups, he always insisted, “This one’s the best yet.” He didn’t look back.
In later years, he seemed under siege. Ex-Fall members were writing books. Journalists were reducing him to a caricature – the drunken northern miserablist.
But he had a self-made, unfiltered, high-wire life. Sixty years of it. Forty onstage. He left a mark on bands like Pavement, the Pixies, and more recently, Cabbage, who supported The Fall in Liverpool in 2017.
The Fall had to cancel shows recently when Mark was unwell. Now, we say goodbye.
Rest in peace, the one and only Mark Edward Smith.
