Joy Division open up about 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'

Joy Division‘s, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris have all spoken about the making of their classic ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.

The 1980 track was named as NME‘s Greatest Track of the last 60 years earlier this week and the band’s remaining members have all spoken about the track and what it mean to them now and how it makes them remember their former frontman and friend Ian Curtis.

Speaking about his memories of the track, Morris said: “I just thought ‘Yeah, this is a good song’, someone might like it. It was a great period for the band, but Ian’s personal life – that was all going badly. In retrospect, when you listen to it in light of what happened, it seems bloody obvious. I honestly didn’t realise that he was writing about himself. I just said ‘These are great lyrics, Ian’. That makes it a bit difficult to listen to now’.”

Sumner also spoke about Curtis and added: “We thought his headspace was OK. But Ian had two faces – the public face for the band and the private troubles he had at home and the way they came out through his lyrics. We didn’t really listen to the lyrics. Joy Division was four people on pedestals, and we didn’t communicate with each other about what the songs are about.”

Hook, who has spent the last two years revisiting Joy Division’s back catalogue with his band Peter Hook And The Light, also spoke about how the track makes him feel now.

He said of this: “It still sends a shiver down my spine. Especially because I know the people involved. It masquerades as this cute little pop song, which is one of its delightful ironies. I would’ve hated it to be about me.”

To read the rest of the interview with Morris, Sumner and Hook and to see the full list, including interviews with Jarvis Cocker, The Killers and The Specials on their own tracks, pick up a copy of this week’s NME, which is on newsstands or available digitally.

Our top 20 tracks of NME‘s lifetime are:

1. Joy Division – ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’
2. Pulp – ‘Common People’
3. David Bowie – ‘Heroes’
4. The Beach Boys – ‘Good Vibratons’
5. New Order – ‘Blue Monday’
6. The Stone Roses – ‘She Bangs The Drums’
7. The Smiths – ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’
8. The Specials – ‘Ghost Town’
9. Dizzee Rascal – ‘Fix Up, Look Sharp’
10. Oasis – ‘Wonderwall’
11. The Rolling Stones – ‘Sympathy For The Devil’
12. The Ronettes – ‘Be My Baby’
13. Michael Jackson – ‘Billie Jean’
14. Sex Pistols – ‘God Save The Queen’
15. The Beatles – ‘A Day In The Life’
16. The Cure – ‘Boys Don’t Cry’
17. Bob Dylan – ‘Like A Rolling Stone’
18. The Beach Boys – ‘God Only Knows’
19. Madonna – ‘Like A Prayer’
20. The Stone Roses – ‘I Am The Resurrection’

To vote now in our readers poll of the greatest track of NME‘s lifetime, click here, you can also join the debate on Twitter using the hashtag #trackofmylifetime.

Check out a video of a host of artists – including Graham Coxon, Maximo Park, Alabama Shakes, and The Maccabees picking their own tracks of NME‘s lifetime below: