Like anyone my age who crawled reluctantly out of adolescence into adulthood listening to late-night John Peel sessions on a tinny transistor radio tucked under the pillow, I have always been aware of Mark E. Smith and The Fall. And, like many who were never hardcore aficionados, such as Peel himself, I would never have described The Fall as my favorite or even one of my favorite bands. But it was a sound and an attitude that was always there deep in the mix of the soundtrack to my career as a person, always there in the wing mirror as I hot-rodded my way clumsily through life, always at least vaguely visible out of the corner of my eye.

In the weeks and days leading up to Mark E. Smith’s death last Wednesday, I oddly found myself humming Lucifer over Lancashire over and over to myself in my mind, as I taxied—cripple that I now am—around this crippled city of Recife, to a dark backdrop of impeachments and coups, recrudescent poverty, politically-motivated corruption trials, and fake news.

And, like many, I imagine I am one of those, who, when I woke up on Wednesday morning and read of the death of Mark E. Smith, for the first time, started working my way methodically through listening to his entire oeuvre. And, like many, I kicked myself and told myself I should have done this long time ago. Everyone, I know, says that when someone close, important or famous is suddenly gone.

Smith’s is indeed an incredibly powerful body of work and does not need death to garnish it. But it does need to be read as a whole, not in little poppy snippets. It follows a very straight, if perverse, line, yet somehow over time reflects all the other kaleidoscopic elements of a life sound-tracked by independent music and buffeted by the vicissitudes of a post-Thatcher Britain and world.

Dead pop stars and artists come in all shapes and sizes. There are those whose deaths shock and seem unjust, those who go out in a blaze of glory or after a descent into ignominy, and national treasures who fade away peacefully after a long productive career. All of these make us feel a little sad. Mark E. Smith was none of the above. Nor would he wish to be. There was never anything mawkish about him. He had always scrupulously eschewed celebrity and sentimentality. It is just as if last orders had already been called and he had been drinking after hours—living too late, in the words of one of his most famous songs—and chucking-out time finally came. The natural order of things. Rest in Piss.

The evening star sets over Manchester this evening, but will appear again in the morning as the morning star amidst a million new stirring angry points of light and life. Just one part of the cycle. A worker’s life well lived. Much work still to be done.