“Bill Is Dead” by The Fall

"Bill Is Dead" sits on Extricate, the Fall's 12th album, from 1990, a record Mark E. Smith made straight after his divorce from guitarist Brix Smith. It started as a joke: Smith and Craig Scanlon meant it as a send-up of the Smiths. Then Smith decided Scanlon's music was too good for a gag and wrote something deeply personal over it, and the result is a slow, tender love song, about as far from the usual Fall snarl as they ever strayed.

The credits are crowded: Charlotte Bill on oboe and flute, Kenny Brady on violin, Scanlon and the returning Martin Bramah on guitars, Steve Hanley on bass, Simon Wolstencroft on drums, Marcia Schofield on keyboards, and Craig Leon on organ and at the mixing desk. Smith refused to put it out as a single, but it topped John Peel's Festive Fifty anyway, the only time his favourite band did so while he was alive.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.