Magic Jewball

If you don’t know that I’m a big Joy Division fan, then you just haven’t been reading my blog enough. But that’s OK. You have your own life, I understand. Even if you knew, maybe you were curious as to what my favorite JD song is. Or maybe you thought “Love Will Tear Us Apart Again” was a fine song and you wondered where to go from there.

I have about eight songs which qualify as my #2 Joy Division track but #1 stands apart and has no competition in my mind. Sure, most of JD’s songs were bleak soundscapes of lyric and music, literally music to commit suicide by. But sometimes you’re just in the mood for that. Anyway, this song is different in that it alternates between hopelessness and despair, Ian Curtis’ voice never sounding deeper. It’s fast/slow/fast, urgent/yearning/urgent. You could pretty much guess that his life and marriage were falling apart, just from these lyrics and the way they were sung.

Joy Division – Twenty Four Hours (not available on Napster, God knows why)

Lyrics:
So this is permanence, love’s shattered pride
What once was innocence, turned on its side
Grey cloud hangs over me, marks every move
Deep in the memory of what once was love

Oh how I realised how I wanted time
Put into perspective, tried so hard to find
Just for one moment I thought I’d found my way
Destiny unfolded – I watched it slip away

Excessive flashpoints, beyond all reach
Solitary demands for all I’d like to keep
Let’s take a ride out, see what we can find
A valueless collection of hopes and past desires

I never realised the lengths I’d have to go
All the darkest corners of a sense I didn’t know
Just for one moment I heard somebody call
Looked beyond the day in hand – there’s nothing there at all

Now that I’ve realised how it’s all gone wrong
Got to find some therapy, this treatment takes too long
Deep in the heart of where sympathy held sway
Got to find my destiny before it gets too late