THE EXPLODING PSYCHEDELIC INEVITABLE
“You cry out in your sleep/And all my failings exposed,” mourns Ian Curtis on the extraordinary, emotional “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” This song, currently in the British singles chart, has its potent appeal hidden on paper. What’s so new, in terms of popular music, about lyrics that deal with the a.m. realization that something about a relationship can go disastrously wrong?
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
THE EXPLODING PSYCHEDELIC INEVITABLE
Penny Valentine
“You cry out in your sleep/And all my failings exposed,” mourns Ian Curtis on the extraordinary, emotional “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” This song, currently in the British singles chart, has its potent appeal hidden on paper. What’s so new, in terms of popular music, about lyrics that deal with the a.m. realization that something about a relationship can go disastrously wrong? The answer is nothing. What produces the overwhelming effect of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” is what happens inside it. Like the yery few true craftsmen in music,. Curtis and his group Joy Division have a sensibility about the potential of music. Like Peter Gabriel and Bowie before him, it’sjhis terrible power that results in something so brilliant it’s almost dangerous.