Love Will Tear Us Apart

Special place in anyone's life if they like good music, the band's best known song but by no means the only song they should be remembered for. On the cusp of a new decade as punk made way for something more subtle and introspective perhaps, JD were setting out a stall that influenced so many others to come. And from its ashes came another superb outfit with their slant on the evolution of the eighties, New Order. As to what the song is about I think others have spotted that this is about the torment that can sometimes afflict one or both participants in an emotional relationship. Perhaps most relevant to a couple who were once close (the LP is called Closer) but cracks are appearing. Like quicksand the more you struggle the deeper you sink or in this context the further "apart" you become. Instead of the original parallel, hand-in-hand, pathway it is now diverging, her back is turned while he can't sleep beset by doubts and recrimination perhaps. "Again" he says, they have had troubled times before and despite making an effort here we are again... that old feeling of losing the grip, losing the love that used to bind you together now is frustrating to the point where you are both tearing it apart. That is the key word, once one now he faces a life without her, being apart having a kind of double meaning I think. The relationship is a casualty of other troubles that keep coming back into their lives. In his case likely it was the mental illness that led him to sadly take his own life... it is both a love song about how deep you can care for another as well as memorial. Having been in a similar situation where it was all running on empty I feel relieved that our relationship did not get this bad. But it took the arrival of another to finally end the torment. But I still play this song now and again and it gives me a boost; within the torment there is also a passion that Mr Curtis brought to his music so ably assisted by his band mates. Better to feel at this intensity than to be dead inside.