It was easy to imagine Mark E. Smith would leave us sooner rather than later, I don’t think he ever gave up on his lifestyle habits even after he got ill, but his music is immortal. All these years it defeated the passing of time and trends, and always will.
I have never met Mark E. Smith. I’m only talking here from a music lover perspective. I know he wasn’t liked by some people, especially some of his former band members (he said in one of his latest interviews few months ago that people still crossed the road from him when they met him in the street). He didn’t care of course. I always admired the man because of his constance. He was constant in his music, constant in his anger. There is charm in an artist who’s not gonna adopt the expected social behaviour. The same way old people sometimes do when they don’t give a damn about what you think about them anymore. In a way, Mark E. Smith was old even when he was young. Journalists would be terrified to speak with him, I know I would!
I think nowadays it is terribly important to celebrate an artist who was not politically correct and who did not give people what they want. He was radical in his art and he wasn’t gonna try to please his audience or change to suit a particular trend but: by not giving you what you want he was giving you exactly what you needed, and I think this is the biggest gift he gave as an artist. He was someone who saw things from the sides and we need that more than ever. We need personalities like him to help us bypass the mainstream supremacy of the hashtag #blessed and hashtag #grateful that we have to deal with all the time, the prison of love and sentiment of pop music, he offered an alternative to that. He offered a band for people who felt differently about life.
A song like ‘Industrial estate’ for example, from The Fall’s first record ‘Live at the witch Trials’ released in 1979, can still feel relevant today. There is something incredibly liberating in hearing someone shout “Yeaaah Yeaaaah Industrial Estaaaate”, which is the power of any good punk tracks: to make you feel less alone. I don’t think Mark E Smith ever did it for humanitarian reasons, it was never done in a 1st degree political way, it was more philosophical and poetic than that, it was a rebellion with a brain and a smirk on your face.
Mark E. Smith was a reference point against which you could always compare yourself to. Mark E. Smith was always gonna be Mark E. Smith an no matter what year you would read him in an interview or see him live, he would still be the same guy - which is a rare and beautiful thing. In fact, it was so attached to his personality that today, in the wake of his passing away, one cannot help but wonder if this quality was lost forever with him. He will be missed. R.I.P.
