Mark E. Smith

Mark Edward Smith (5 March 1957 – 24 January 2018) was an English singer-songwriter. He was the lead vocalist, lyricist and only constant member of the post-punk group the Fall. Smith formed the band after attending the June 1976 Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Sfnp and was its leader until his death. During their 42-year existence, the Fall's line-up included some sixty musicians, with whom Smith released 32 studio albums and numerous singles and EPs.Template:Efn-ua<ref>Youngs, Ian. "Mark E Smith: British rock's cult hero." BBC, 24 January 2018. Retrieved 24 January 2018</ref>

Smith had a difficult and complex personality and was a long-term alcoholic.<ref>Kaufman, Gil. "Fall Singer To Enter Alcohol Treatment ProgramTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore." MTV, 15 April 1998. Retrieved 4 April 2021</ref><ref>Smith, Mark E. "Mark E. Smith on drinking alcohol (transcript included)." Youtube. Retrieved 4 April 2021</ref> He was known for his biting and targeted wit, evident in interviews, for which he was much in demand by music journalists throughout his career. He was suspicious of the trappings of fame and largely avoided socialising with people associated with the music scene, including other Fall members. The dark and sardonic aspect of his personality often appears in his lyrics; he especially derided music industry people.Template:Efn-ua Smith's approach to music was unconventional and he did not have high regard for musicianship, stating that "rock & roll isn't even music really. It's a mistreating of instruments to get feelings over."<ref name="TP" />

The Fall are regarded as one of the most important and influential post-punk bands of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Although Smith was difficult to work with, he was revered by fans and critics, and was described as a "strange kind of antimatter national treasure."<ref>Maume, Chris. "The Fall's Mark E Smith has become a strange, antimatter national treasure." The Independent, 5 March 2016. Retrieved 17 March 2017</ref>

Life and career

Early life

Smith was born to working-class parents Irene (née Brownhill) and Jack Smith,<ref name="IT">Template:Cite news</ref> in Broughton, Salford, the eldest of four siblings. He had three sisters: Suzanne (who later painted the front sleeve for the 1980 Fall album Grotesque (After the Gramme)), Caroline, and Barbara.<ref name="w&f"/> His grandfather, James Brownhill, had fought in France during the Second World War and was involved at the Dunkirk evacuation.Template:Sfnp Jack was too young to have fought in the war, but joined the army as soon as he was old enough.Template:Sfnp Smith's parents had moved to nearby Sedgley Park, Prestwich after their marriage in 1955.Template:Sfnp Smith's father died suddenly in 1989 of a heart attack.<ref>Simpson, Dave. "The Fall: 10 of the best." The Guardian, 11 June 2014. Retrieved 24 January 2018</ref>

According to Simon Ford, Smith did not become interested in music until he was about 14, when his father "allowed a record player into the house." The first single he bought was "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath, and his first gig was the Groundhogs at Manchester's Free Trade Hall.Template:Sfnp He attended Sedgley Park Primary School, and later Stand Grammar School for BoysTemplate:Sfnp before leaving aged 16. That year, he left home and moved in with his girlfriend and future Fall keyboardist, Una Baines, later of the Blue Orchids.<ref name="w&f"/> He subsequently took an evening class in A-level Literature.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His first job was in a meat factory before he became a shipping clerk on Salford docks.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Fall

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The Fall were named after the 1956 novel by Albert Camus, and initially consisted of Smith and his friends Martin Bramah, Una Baines and Tony Friel.Template:Sfnp By this time, Smith was unemployed, having dropped out of college at the age of 19.<ref name="ar">Aroesti, Rachel. "Mark E Smith, lead singer with the Fall, dies aged 60." The Guardian, 24 January 2018. Retrieved 24 January 2018</ref> He gave up his job as a shipping clerk at Salford docks shortly afterward to focus on the band.Template:Sfnp Their early line-up was formed from early members of the punk rock movement. Their music underwent numerous stylistic changes, often concurrently with changes in the group's line-up. The Fall's 40-year career can be broken into five broad periods, based on the band's membership. These include their early late 1970s line-up, the classic Fall period of Riley/Scanlon/Hanley, the Brix years of 1984-89, their early 1990s revival, and everything after the on-stage fight in New York, after which Hanley quit and Smith was arrested (see below).<ref name="SoN" />

File:Brix Smith.jpg

Steve Hanley and Brix Smith, Perverted by Language tour, Hamburg, 1984

He married American guitarist and Fall member Brix Smith on 19 July 1983, after they met in April 1983 in Chicago during a Fall American tour.<ref name=uncut>Template:Cite news</ref> She joined the group on guitar and vocals for the album Perverted by Language and co-wrote some of the best-regarded Fall tracks from the period, and is widely credited for introducing a more mainstream, pop-oriented element to the group's sound. She remained with the Fall until the couple divorced in 1989.<ref name="nme1">Morgan Britton, Luke. "Read The Fall’s Brix Smith Start’s tribute to “first love” Mark E Smith." NME, 25 January 2018. Retrieved 28 December 2021</ref>

Smith remarried twice after this. His second marriage to Saffron Prior, who had worked for The Fall's fan club, ended in divorce in 1995.<ref name="IT"/> He married Eleni Poulou, also called Elenor or Elena, in 2001. Poulou joined the band in September 2002<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and left in April 2016.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Smith and Poulou divorced in 2016, and Smith's partner at the time of his death was his manager Pamela Vander.<ref name="nytobit"/>

Referring to the Fall's 60-odd former members, Smith said that he had "only" fired around half the number of people he is said to have dismissed, and that some left of their own free will. He would fire musicians for seemingly trivial reasons; he once dismissed a sound engineer for eating a salad, later explaining that "the salad was the last straw."<ref>Chalmers, Robert. "Life lessons: Mark E Smith on bullying, the occult and why Stalin had the right idea." The Independent, 13 November 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref> Marc Riley was fired for dancing to Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" during their Australian tour, although the two had had many arguments beforehand. Smith said that he often changed musicians so that they would not become lazy or complacent.<ref>Smith, Mark E. "Mark E Smith vs The Sound Engineer." Unknown. Retrieved 4 February 2018</ref>

After the influential British DJ and Fall supporter John Peel died in 2004, Smith made a notorious appearance on the BBC's Newsnight show in which he seemed stunned and incoherent, which he afterwards put down to a rare incidence of stage fright.<ref>Mark E Smith on John Peel, BBC, 2004. Retrieved 8 January 2007</ref>

While the Fall never achieved widespread success beyond minor hit singles in the mid-1980s, they have had a loyal cult following throughout their career. Steve Hanley is regarded by many as one of the most talented bassists of his generation, equal to Peter Hook, Andy Rourke or Gary Mounfield.<ref name="thefallenbook.co.uk">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} Page promoting book</ref>

Solo work and collaboration

Alongside his work with the Fall, Smith released two spoken-word solo albums, The Post-Nearly Man (1998) and Pander! Panda! Panzer! (2002). Both feature readings of Fall lyrics set to electronic sound collages and samples of Fall songs, as well as contributions from members of The Fall.<ref name="SHuey">Huey, Steve. Mark E. Smith profile, All Music. Retrieved 24 January 2018.</ref> Smith appeared as a guest vocalist for Edwyn Collins, Elastica, Gorillaz,<ref name="songs">Huey, Steve. "Mark E. Smith Songs. AllMusic. Retrieved 25 January 2018</ref> Long Fin Killie, Mouse on Mars, Coldcut and Ghostigital. His contribution to Inspiral Carpets' 1994 song "I Want You" won UK top 20 recognition, topped John Peel's influential Festive FiftyTemplate:Sfnp and resulted in Smith's first appearance on the UK TV show Top of the Pops.<ref>Inspirals Biography Template:Webarchive</ref> He worked with Mouse on Mars on the project Von Südenfed, whose album, Tromatic Reflexxions, was released in May 2007.<ref name="ar"/> Smith provided guest vocals on the song "Glitter Freeze" from the 2010 Gorillaz album Plastic Beach, and appeared later that year on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2010, where he joined the band on-stage to perform the song during their headlining set. Smith joined the group Shuttleworth to record the World Cup song "England's Heartbeat."<ref name="PA">Pan, Arnold. Mark E. Smith and Shuttleworth – "England's Heartbeat" (Unofficial World Cup Anthem), Popmatters, 7 June 2010. Retrieved 24 January 2018</ref>

In 1986, he wrote the play Hey, Luciani, based on the short reign of Pope John Paul I.<ref>Raggett, Ned. "Hey, Luciani!",. All Music; retrieved 25 January 2018</ref> Smith made a cameo appearance in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People (2002), while his younger self was portrayed by Sam Riley<ref>Renshaw, David. "Mark E Smith backs Brad Pitt to play him in Fall biopic", NME, 28 December 2012. retrieved 24 January 2018</ref> in a section that did not make the final cut of the film, but appears as a deleted scene on the DVD. Smith made an appearance in the BBC Three sitcom Ideal in May 2007, playing a foulmouthed, chain-smoking Jesus.<ref>"Mark E Smith Is Jesus", Uncut, 5 January 2007. Retrieved 24 January 2018.</ref> A fuzzy, muted version of Fall song "Hip Priest" (1982) appeared in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs.<ref>Beck, Jay. Lowering the Boom: Critical Studies in Film Sound. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008. 78. Template:ISBN</ref>

Death

Smith died on 24 January 2018 after a long illness with lung and kidney cancer,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> aged 60 years.<ref name="nytobit">Template:Cite news</ref> His health had been particularly bad during 2017, which led to performances in a wheelchair. A heavy smoker, Smith had long suffered from throat and respiratory problems. His work ethic and output never declined and throughout his illness he continued to release a new album close to once a year.<ref name="NSm">Harrison, Andrew. "Mark E Smith: A sudden end to forty years of prole art threat." New Statesman, 25 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018.</ref> Tributes to Smith came from Brix Smith, Tim Burgess, Liam Gallagher, Andy Bell, Mat Osman, Billy Bragg, Win Butler, Cat Power, Edgar Wright, the Pixies, Garbage, Stuart Murdoch, Terry Christian, Graham Coxon, Irvine Welsh and Gorillaz.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Lyrical and vocal style

Smith sang with a heavy Mancunian accent, and wrote in a cryptic style.<ref name="allmusic1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His abstruse song titles, often derived from cutting out words and phrases from books and newspapers, reflect the same tendency, for example "To Nkroachment: Yarbles" (1985).Template:Sfnp His vocal style was similarly unusual, and his delivery is known for his tendency to end phrases with an "ah"-sound.<ref>Jones, Sasha-Frere."Mark E. Smith’s Mantras of Disdain." Village Voice, 25 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref> He often speak-sang or sing-slurred his lyrics, especially from the mid-1990s. His singing voice, particularly when playing live, has been described as "rambling", and he often interjected improvised rants between verses.<ref>Kaplan, Ilana. "Mark E. Smith dead: Eight of The Fall's best tracks." The Independent, 25 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref> He tended to write lyrics as free-form prose into one of his many notebooks, and only later set them to pieces of music composed by Fall musicians. He was a prolific writer who often wrote in dense continuous prose, which he would later edit down into lyrics.Template:Sfnp

Some of Smith's vocal tracks were recorded spontaneously at his home, when he sang into a dictaphone or cassette recorder, including sections of "Paintwork" from the Fall's 1985 album This Nation's Saving Grace, which also includes the voice of Alan Cooper discussing main sequence stars, from a documentary Smith happened to be watching at the time. He later adapted the resulting sound effect in the studio; examples include for the intro to "Bad News Girl" (1988).Template:Sfnp

Smith's ability as a prose writer is evident in songs that abandon the verse/chorus format in favour of a long continuous narrative. Examples include "Spectre Vs Rector" (1979), "The North Will Rise Again" (1980), "Winter (Hostel-Maxi)" and "Winter 2" (1982), and "Wings" (1983). Fall songs written in this style are often not concerned with character or story development, establishing a sense of place and atmosphere instead. By the late 1980s, Smith had largely given up this format.<ref name="TP">Parkes, Taylor."The Fall and Mark E Smith As A Narrative Lyric Writer." The Quietus, July 2010. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref> Some early songs concern one of his assumed alter-egos, though always from a third-person point of view. Examples include Roman Totale XVII, "the bastard offspring of Charles I and the Great God Pan", who appears in "The N.W.R.A" (1980), the live album Totale's Turns, "2nd Dark Age" (one of the b-sides to the "Fiery Jack" single), and the sleeve credits for Dragnet, as well as the characters in "Fiery Jack" (1980), "Hip Priest" (1982), "The Man Whose Head Expanded" (1983), and "Riddler" (1986).Template:Sfnp Rare first person narratives include "Frenz", "Carry Bag Man", and "The Steak Place" from 1988's The Frenz Experiment,Template:Sfnp as well as "Bill Is Dead" (1990), "Living Too Late" (1986), and "Edinburgh Man" (1991). He did not respond to requests to explain the meaning or sources behind his lyrics. When asked by a journalist as to how much of his self could be found in the song's characters, he replied "dunno, you're the one sitting there in your round glasses and leather jacket. You tell me what you think it's an extension of...for every bloke pulling a pint, there's about ten thousand journalists writing an article about it."Template:Sfnp

Fragments of Smith's lyrics often appeared as handwritten scribbles on early Fall album and single covers, coupled with collages he had put together. In a 1983 interview with Sounds, Smith said that he liked artwork to reflect the album content and explained how his graphic choices reflected his attitude to music. He mentioned how he was drawn to cheap and misspelled posters, amateur layouts of local papers and printed cash and carry signs with "inverted commas where you don't need them."<ref name="szs"/> His technique was often imitated, for example on Pavement's early releases, which heavily resemble the artwork for Hex Enduction Hour (1982),<ref name="szs">Robertson, Sandy."Hex Enduction." Sounds, 8 May 1982. Retrieved 4 October 2015</ref><ref>Murphy, John L. "The Sound of an Autodidact's Snarl: 'Mark E. Smith and The Fall'." Popmatters, 23 January 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2018.</ref> and whom Smith described as "mere Fall copyists."<ref>Herrington, Tony. "Mancunian Candidate." The Wire, September 1996.</ref>

Smith's lyrics were described by critic Simon Reynolds as "a kind of Northern English magic realism that mixed industrial grime with the unearthly and uncanny, voiced through a unique, one-note delivery somewhere between amphetamine-spiked rant and alcohol-addled yarn."Template:Sfnp He described his approach as wanting to combine "primitive music with intelligent lyrics."<ref>Hogan, Marc. "10 Songs That Defined the Fall and Mark E. Smith." Pitchfork, 25 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref> Thematically, his frequently densely layered words often centre around descriptions of urban grotesques, gloomy landscapes, "crackpot history", and are infused with regional slang.<ref name="SoN">O'Neil, Sean."Remembering The Fall's Mark E. Smith, rock’s most uncompromising voice." AV Club, 24 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref> In interviews, Smith cited Colin Wilson,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Arthur Machen, Wyndham Lewis, Thomas Hardy,<ref>Smith, Mark E (2008). Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith. New York: Viking Press. Template:ISBN</ref> M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Clark Ashton Smith,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and Philip K. Dick as influences,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> as well as Edgar Allan Poe, Ezra Pound, Raymond Chandler,<ref>Stubbs, David. "The Indelible Prinz." Melody Maker, 12 November 1988. Retrieved 12 November 1988</ref> and H. P. Lovecraft.<ref>Storytime With Mark E Smith BBC. Retrieved 21 December 2007</ref>

Personality

File:The Fall (1).jpg

Smith performing in Edinburgh, 2011

Smith had a difficult and often reactionary personality,Template:Sfnp and was defiantly Northern English in outlook. Brix said that he carried "a chip on both shoulders. I remember him talking about fucking southern bastards a lot and not wanting to come to London. He hated London intensely. He's quite contrarian as a person and as a writer, which is what gives him his edge."<ref name="Brix">O'Hagan, Sean. "Brix Smith Start: ‘Mark E Smith? He's complicated’." The Observer, 1 May 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref> Throughout his career, he clashed with musicians, record producers, sound engineers, record label heads and fellow Manchester scene alumni such as Tony Wilson, Peter Hook, Shaun Ryder and Morrissey, whom he disparagingly referred to as "Steven."<ref name="To" />

Smith had a working class and anti-intellectual outlook, but a strong interest in literature. As the journalist Andrew Harrison observed, although he wished that a majority of his audience were miners and postmen, a great many were students or Guardian readers.<ref name="NSm" />

According to biographer Simon Ford, Smith often treated musicians as would "[a] bad-tempered despot."Template:Sfnp He was highly charismatic and cultivated a wry and misanthropic personality during interviews and live performances.<ref name="SoN" /> As an interviewee, his dry and caustic wit was very quotable, especially when he was critiquing other contemporary bands and "music personalities", a favoured pastime. He became a mainstay of the English music press throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and his sharp tongue often turned on the journalists themselves; many reported being nervous before meeting him, and published "war stories" afterwards.<ref>Beaumont, Mark. "“I survived a Mark E. Smith interview”: one NME writer's unique experience with the post-punk provocateur." NME, 25 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref>

During his later performances, he often walked off stage in frustration, or maliciously interfered with the musicians' instruments. This behavior culminated during a 1998 gig at Brownies in New York, at a low point in his life when he was drinking heavily and band morale was at its lowest. During the performance he got into an onstage fight with the other musicians,<ref name="SoN"/> leading to long-term bassist Steve Hanley and drummer Karl Burns quitting the band. The night ended with Smith's arrest for assaulting his girlfriend and Fall keyboardist Julia Adamson, and is widely considered the band's nadir and Smith's low point.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Smith was ordered to undergo treatment for alcohol abuse and anger management. The police charges were dropped after a period of good behaviour.<ref name="NSm"/>

Smith said that his favourite things in life were "Scottish people, cats, Coronation Street, and Can."<ref name="To">Siquig, Alex. "Why He Mattered: The Fall's Mark E. Smith: 1957-2018." The Outline, 25 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018</ref> He was a passionate football fan and lifelong Manchester City follower: even appearing on the BBC's Final Score to read the classified football results.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He admired mavericks such as George Best, whom he met and drank with, and observed how if Best could have drawn a crowd of 40,000 people a week he should have been able to "do what he liked."Template:Sfnp

Originally a Labour supporter, Smith left the party during the Falklands War (which he supported), then became further disillusioned with Labour during the Tony Blair era.<ref name="Chalmers">Template:Cite news</ref> In the 1997 election, he voted for the Conservative Party in opposition to Blair.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Asked during a mid-1980s interview with Smash Hits as to what policies he would adopt if he became Prime Minister, he said: "I'd halve the price of cigarettes, double the tax on health food, then I'd declare war on France."<ref>"Mark E Smith", Sunday Times, 25 January 2018; retrieved 28 January 2018.</ref> In a 2012 interview, Smith jokingly stated he would put the Queen in charge of Britain when asked the same question.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Smith also expressed support for the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. Although a longstanding member of the Musicians Union, he criticised their political outlook, saying, "all they say is vote Corbyn and stay in the European Union".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Legacy

Smith was both resigned and ambivalent about his legacy, especially in terms of the fad-orientated music industry of which he was often harshly critical in his lyrics. He noted, somewhat bitterly, how "every artist wants credibility. A couple of years ago, I read a poll on the hundred best artists of all time. The Fall was in there between Mozart and Puccini. I was very proud of that. Of course, the next day I can pick up a paper and be the guy with no teeth who beats everybody up."Template:Sfnp Despite this, he was widely influential and critically acclaimed throughout his career, in part because he did not seek to capitalise on current trends which might have dated the band.

Similarly, he refused to look backwards; when recording, he was adamant that the Fall not repeat themselves stylistically, and when playing live, he refused to play old songs. The approach is further seen in his strategy of frequently replacing band members. Long-term fan John Peel said that "the Fall are the group against which all others must measure themselves",<ref name="NSm" /> and when asked which Fall albums he would recommend to newcomers, he replied, "all of them." In January 2005, Smith was the subject of The Fall: The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith, a BBC Four television documentary.<ref name="w&f">Template:Cite news</ref>

Several alternative rock artists have mentioned Smith in their songs. The Jazz Butcher released "Southern Mark Smith" in 1983. Barbara Manning's song "Mark E. Smith & Brix" appears on her 1989 album Lately I Keep Scissors.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> German rock band Tocotronic mentioned him in their song "Ich habe geträumt, ich wäre Pizza essen mit Mark E. Smith" ("I dreamt I went to eat pizza with Mark E. Smith") on their 1996 album Wir kommen um uns zu beschweren (We come to complain). Elastica released the track "How He Wrote Elastica Man" in 2000, which was co-written by, and features Smith, the title being a reference to the 1980 Fall song "How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'", while in 2014 Fat White Family released an EP titled "I Am Mark E Smith.",<ref name="Pitchfork">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> a reference to the 1985 Fall song "I am Damo Suzuki". Sonic Youth covered three Fall songs, as well as the Kinks' "Victoria", which they released in 1990 as the 4 Tunna Brix EP.<ref>Miller, Jeff. "The Pixies Re-Form, Return With a Vengeance." Hollywood Reporter, 11 September Retrieved 28 January 2018</ref> Cedric Bixler-Zavala, singer for the American groups At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta, described Smith as "one of the pillars of influence for me as lyricist and trouble maker."<ref name="ar"/>

Discography

The Fall

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Solo work and collaborations

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Literature

• Mark E. Smith: Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith, Viking (2008), Template:ISBN

References

Sources

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Further reading

• Norton, Tessa and Stanley, Bob, eds. (2021). Excavate! The Wonderful and Terrifying World of the Fall. London: Faber & Faber. Template:ISBN
• Goddard, Michael and Halligan, Benjamin, eds. (2010). Mark E. Smith and the Fall: Art, Music and Politics. Farnham: Ashgate. Template:ISBN

External links

• The Fall online formerly: The Official Fall Website & The Unofficial Fall Website
• The Annotated Fall Lyrics to The Fall's songs, annotated
• The Fall "Totally Wired", Reykjavik 1981
• The Fall, "Fortress" live in Reykjavik, 1981
• Guardian interview (2005)
• BBC Collective interview (2005)
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