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57: THE FALL
Rowche Rumble/In My Area
(Step Forward, 1979)

IN 1979, there was no one cooler in my limited universe than Mark E Smith.

It was a very specific kind of cool, of course, and a difficult one to defend in the face of more deserving fashion plates or more iconic generational spokesmen.

However, I thought then - and still think now - that there was something magnificently individual about a dour young man in a shapeless M&S cardigan who nevertheless reshaped the English language to his own ends, thereby rebuilding the mythic landscape of the industrial North as a surrealist netherworld.

I'm not sure whether "literate" is necessarily the right word to use to describe Mark E Smith's lyrics, but his idiosyncratic brilliance defies comparison. Having said that, Rowche Rumble is one of his most linear and least impenetrable narratives.

I had the very devil of a job choosing a Fall single for this list, and very nearly opted for Fiery Jack or How I Wrote "Elastic Man". However, I went for Rowche Rumble out of nostalgia, mainly, as it was the first Fall single I bought and it reminds me of that exciting time when the indie scene was in its infancy and the record shop seemed like a portal to another world.

Rowche Rumble's riff is warped, cheesy and lopsided, topped with Smith's trademark scowling invective and hoarse yelps. Its vision of valium-dependent housewives resembles the bleak outline of Mother's Little Helper by The Stones, but shifts the blame on to pharmaceutical companies whose addiction-feeding output is presented as unscrupulous and morally suspect.

However, this doesn't preclude witty, barbed asides aimed at Smith's peers ("musician, heal thyself").

Mark E Smith remains a national treasure to this day, albeit a difficult and recalcitrant one - James Joyce reincarnated as Albert Tatlock, with the expression of an Easter Island statue. Love him or loathe him, he is (alongside John Lydon and Peter Hammill) one of Britain's most unique and instantly recognisable vocal stylists, and a genuine poet besides - even if he'd throw a pint pot at me for saying so.

File under unfileable.

10:53am Friday 22nd February 2008

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