They famously started the NYC downtown rock scene at CBGB, where they collared owner Hilly Kristal, talked him into giving them a weekly gig at his biker bar, and literally built the stage.

But their 1977 debut album Marquee Moon was a full-blown masterpiece, with funny lyrics swiped from film noir and symbolist poets in “See No Evil,” “Guiding Light,” and “Prove It.” Verlaine’s strangled voice was perfect for deadpan lines like “If I ever catch that ventriloquist/I’ll squeeze his head right into my fist.”

Adventure was nearly as great, with frantically funny raves like “Glory” and “Careful” (“Your wine is just sour grapes/Pour me a glass any time I’m not there”), along with fragile ballads like “Carried Away” and the R.E.M.-inventing “Days.” They kept getting fiercer on the road in 1978, as documented on bootlegs.

Television played a shared bill with Patti Smith at the Roseland Ballroom in 2004, which she treated as a grand reunion of kindred spirits, yet Verlaine remained his ornery, hard-to-please, eager-to-split self.

His onetime best friend Richard Hell ends his memoir I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp with a sad tale about accidentally running into Verlaine on the sidewalk, outside the East Village’s Strand Bookstore, rummaging through the dollar bins.

His most underrated solo album is Cover from 1984, a synth-pop experiment with glossy grooves like “Dissolve/Reveal,” “Rotation,” and “Swim.” Fittingly, he played on Patti Smith’s 1996 comeback Gone Again as well as the soundtrack of Todd Haynes’ Dylan fantasia I’m Not There, with a spooky version of “Cold Irons Bound” from Time Out of Mind.