I'm not one to shy away from the maudlin or overly-theatrical, but this one has always struck me as laying it on a little thick. Six beers into a depressing February Cleveland Wednesday night, the rest of the family having gone to sleep hours ago, I eat it up, but other times ... lets just say if you were a new friend, and we were hanging out, I'd never play this song unless I was sure you were into Joy Division first.
The video is even worse in this regard (see below, as Joy Division was apparently in some kind of weird Jawa branch of the Ku Klux Klan ... didn't they know about the KKK in Britain?).
The rhythmic drumming (and heavy lifting done by a tambourine) drives the song. The vocals cracking near the end giving it the emotional resonance. And several sets of great lines. My favorite is the accusatory "PEOPLE LIKE YOU ... FIND IT EASY." (there's that nerd fantasy again), although the lyrics don't necessarily aggregate into a coherent message.
[all things considered, I'm glad to see this in here, rather than Love Will Tear Us Apart.]
Here's a fair Trent Reznor / Peter Murphy cover of it.
RATING: Sober: 73. non-Sober (any kind): 86.
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Agree with most of the comments, but I would disagree in that it would be ok if Love Will Tear Us Apart was here instead. Or Transmission for that matter.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thanks for linking the Peter Murphy cover. I hadn't heard that before. Interesting.
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