Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart

Few songs manage to distil heartbreak into something so gorgeously haunting as Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. Released in 1980, it is both an anthem and an elegy, shimmering with the cold beauty of post-punk while carrying the unbearable weight of Ian Curtis' voice.

The track begins with deceptively bright synths and a driving rhythm. But scratch the surface, and infinite sadness lies there below. Curtis, who committed suicide shortly before the single was released, doesn't sing so much as inhabit the words, his baritone trembling like an overhead electric cable in July.

Each line is delivered as if carved out of exhaustion. 'When routine bites hard and ambitions are low/ And resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow/ And we're changing our ways, taking different roads/ Then love, love will tear us apart/ again.'


And the song's duality is Schrodingerian: it's both danceable and devastating, melodic and mournful, alive and dead. The band's tight instrumentation creates a shimmering frame around Curtis' voice, amplifying its fragility. To hear it is to be told about the decay that follows love, and yet how we willingly ignore the road sign.