Legend of the Fall: Mark E. Smith and me

He was one of the most unlikely pop stars this country has ever produced: extraordinarily badly dressed and famously contrarian, with a voice that sounded more like an angry man shouting than anything recognisable as singing.

But Mark E. Smith, front man of the Fall, became one of the most recognisable and eventually revered figures on the music scene. And five years on from his death at 60, his stock is higher than ever – his influence heard in the sound of newer bands such as Sleaford Mods and Idles, his name regularly evoked on the likes of BBC Radio 6 Music, and a giant tribute mural an unlikely tourist attraction in his hometown of Prestwich.

I hadn’t thought about him much for years and rarely react to celebrity deaths, but his death – five years ago today, on 24 January 2018 – seemed to strike me inexplicably hard, and for months afterwards sent my thoughts back repeatedly to half a lifetime ago.