Indie Number Ones - 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' - Joy Division
This is a total and utter rip-off of the great Tom Breilan's "Number Ones on Stereogum", where he writes about every number one on the American Top 40 charts. Which is itself admittedly a rip-off of Alan's Popular write-ups of every UK Number One on their charts. If, for some unknown reason, you have lots of spare time these are totally fun ways to pass the time.
Mainly I'm doing this as an opportunity to write about the music that I love and to delve a little deeper into my favorite songs' story and origins. Hopefully it will be enjoyable enough to write and more importantly enjoyable enough to read that I keep the enthusiasm going all the way to current modern rock #1 [checks notes] hmmmm, well uh it's [double checks notes] The Killers "Caution", a song we know absolutely nothing about.
We launch with an absolute all-time classic, Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart".
Tl;dr: It's a stone cold, dead on the mark perfect 10/10.
It's bigger than something called "Where's Captain Kirk" by Spizzenergi which started the 1980s in pole position. In fact, I feel a little gross even putting that song in the same article as LWTUA.)
Starting over then.
Love Will Tear Us Apart is an absolute all-time monster classic of a song, a perfect 10/10 from here to eternity.
In an alternate universe where Ian Curtis got help for his depression and Joy Division surged forwards for a few more years, it's still a 10 out of 10 and just one of many perfect songs from the band. But this is the multiverse we've got, so we can't talk about Love Will Tear Us Apart without talking about singer Ian Curtis' suicide shortly after the song's recording.
Ian married Debbie Woodruff when he was 19, and she 18. Ian was epileptic, suffered from depression, and soon the added pressure of fronting a band breaking big was too much for him. I think just as importantly, the distance between who you are as a person betwen 19 & 24 is an ocean, and the distance between Ian and Debbie grew into a universe:
Why is the bedroom so cold?
Turned away on your side
Is my timing that flawed?
Our respect run so dry?
Amazing that at such a young age Ian could nail the resentment and bleakness of marital drift so succinctly and perfectly.
On the music side, the song's built around Peter Hook's strummed bassline, Bernard Sumner's descending synth line and the skittering thump of Stephen Morris' drums that hint at the band's later post-Ian move into dance territory. In fact, LWTUA charted in the US Disco charts and a fun but necessary Arthur Baker remix later found some success as a re-release in the mid 90s.
Ian actually plays guitar on the song, a rarity:
"Ian didn't really want to play guitar, but for some reason we wanted him to play it. I can't remember the reason now ... We showed him how to play D and we wrote a song. I wonder if that's why we wrote "Love Will Tear Us Apart", you could drone a D through it. I think he played it live because I was playing keyboards.[8]"
Besides the marital desolation, legend has it that Factory Records boss Tony Wilson (link) gave Ian a copy of Frank Sinatra’s 20 Golden Greats so the singer could study how to croon and mix up his phrasing. The influence is there if you listen to the two versions of the song, the early, original “Pennine” version and the single version that went on to achieve #1 success in the UK.
(Personal note, my freshman year roommates and I were listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and Harry Connick, Jr. and we loved to sing one in the style of the other. Crooning, "I want to fuck you like an animal" is truly great fun.)
Ultimately, Love Will Tear Us Apart was released in June 1980, a month after Ian's suicide by hanging. It became Joy Division's last and biggest hit. Ian's widow Deb had the song's title engraved on his headstone.
Chartwise
Love Will Tear Us Apart hit #1 on the NME indie charts in July 1980, staying there for a total of 10 weeks, and was later named NME Single of the Year in 1980.
Ultimately, Love Will Tear Us Apart was released in June 1980, a month after Ian's suicide by hanging. It became Joy Division's last and biggest hit. Ian's widow Deb had the song's title engraved on his headstone.
Chartwise
Love Will Tear Us Apart hit #1 on the NME indie charts in July 1980, staying there for a total of 10 weeks, and was later named NME Single of the Year in 1980.
Bonus: Here's an early John Peel version of the song.
2xBonus: New Order's version.
Bernard's chewing bubble gum casual singing style just straight up doesn't work compared to Ian's frenetic intensity. The New Order version comes across more like some hapless A&R label boss' poorly chosen cover than something that originated with 3/4 of the original band.
3xBonus: Speaking of covers, here's an amazing data viz of all the 168 covers of LWTUA as of 2013:
http://www.petercrnokrak.com/love-will-tear-us-apart-again/
Note to extremely bored, stir-crazy December quarantine self: rank the best LWTUA covers.
Thanks for reading everyone. Please hmu with feedback - Migtastic of the old Gmail variety.
*Once we catch up to Billboard's Modern Rock debut in 1988, we'll probably ping back and forth between that chart and NME's Indie songs.
**(I sometimes wonder if there are indie kids that don't speak English that think of Love Will Tear Us Apart as a romantic upbeat song. UPDATE: there are some of you native English speakers who never thought of this as anything but an upbeat song.)
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