Relationships between the world and Mark E. Smith

Dada:

An anti war rhetoric (WWI)
Designed to combat Nationalism
It denied the cultural value of at
Deliberately disregarded artistic convention

“…disgusted by the butchery of WWI, we devoted ourselves to the Fine Arts. Despite the remote booming of artillery we sang, painted, pasted, and wrote poetry with all our might and main. We were seeking an elementary art to cure man of the frenzy of the times and a new order to restore the balance between heaven and hell. This art rapidly became a subject of general disapproval. It was not surprising to us that the “bandits” were unable to understand us. In their puerile megalomania and power-madness, they demanded that art itself must serve to brutalize mankind.”

HORRORS OF WWI, lost generation, disillusionment

Influences on Mark E. Smith:
Total rejection of the standard coupled with an active desire to undermine and make ridicule of that same cultural standard.

The Fall influence on the name:
The bands name, the fall, is itself a reference to the novel by Albert Camus, a nihilist.

The ides of nihilism is inherently tied to punk.

Punk itself is a rejection of a norm, namely:

The Sex Pistols’ slogan “no future”

The post baby-boom generation (Mark E. Smith) had nothing to rally behind. No wars, no great oppressor, only the disillusionment of the hippies and the general distaste for the political workings of the older generations. Punk stems from boredom.

One could criticize punk as an inability to face up to the harsh realities of the world (being that there was nothing to actually rally for)

Mark E. Smith’s lyrics speak chiefly at the dissatisfaction with the world.
• anger and mediocrity (like all punk)
• lament for the death of literacy
• disgust with the state of culture

“Contradictory” reference points I was told to research:
Opera and contemporary dance music, witchcraft and amphetamines, Luddism and valium, hobgoblin and Queen Victoria.

Though they seem contradictory in the world of Mark E. Smith the represent the dissatisfaction with the ideas and ideals held by many as sacred.

Each shows the same thing, just put forth under a different flag.
Hobgoblins are essentially fictional beasts that live to cause torment, and are pressed into our psyches from an early age but so is the Queen Victoria. In other words, these comparisons serve to show that all human inner workings are frail and pointless, i.e. Nihilism.
Albert Camus sought to prove life itself to be meaningless. Taking a cue from the “pure reason” of Nietzsche, Camus showed that only in CHAOS there is TRUE ORDER or vice versa. *Camus: Humans are a victims of their own lives and in the end they are just going to be fucked*


Mark E. Smith was a college dropout and become a working class hero as he worked in the Salford docks, which he quit shortly to gain attention and recognition for his ideas by devoting his full energies to The Fall.

This new energy came with the disregard of social standards as well as
Dress
Attitude
Actions

Smith’s attitude and “bellicose insobriety” is, likely in his own estimation, a rejection of the social value of courtesy; most of us grow out of being visibly inebriated in public before the age of 25; Mark E. Smith is still at it.


CONNECTIONS Mark E. Smith and Dada

Dada was a knee jerk response to the shock of modern warfare and in inability to cope.

Mark E. Smith has a similar response to being born into a relative comfort and normality in Manchester 1957, an inability to cope with the very drabness of life itself.

He would much rather people think about his music that sit/dance and enjoy it.


Although Camus is a great writer, he and his cohorts like Jean Paul Sartre are, at heart, lazy whiners (at least from one perspective). The same can be said about Mark E. Smith.
• He is always dunk (or at least represents himself to be)
• Draws influence from a purely philosophical perspective
This is to say he does not account for any perspective, but for his own ideals – look at the interviews with him, he is very quick to dismiss alternative (which is oftentimes ironically mainstream) methodology as “shit”.

ALTHOUGH Mark E. Smith draws verbal influence from the depth of literary knowledge, his complaints are the same as any punk rocker:
• the song “God Box” which is anti TV
• many songs in which he decries David Bowie and Glam Rock such as “Hard in the Country” and “Glam Racket”
• angry over a girl in “Hillary”
• and every other song criticizing the stiffness of society.


A friend’s interpretation of the life Mark E. Smith:
What society ever did to Mark E. Smith, we may never know for sue. But rest assured it weaned him on both comfort and knowledge, without any real cause for struggle while feeding him drugs and making him bitter that the world cares not for a visionary artist. Rather than actually going ahead and enjoying what he had, he took the “punk” route, and concentrated on how miserable his life was. It earned him millions of dollars.


Smith’s mail goal in life was NOT TO CONFORM, this appears more important than any underlying social message.

More typical Smith complaints:
• Things are too “trendy” ex. Glasgow, scenes, kids
• Government “becoming fascist”

It’s possible Smith could just be a drunken commie.