Ian Curtis - The Patron Saint of Exhaustion

In the last couple of years we’ve seen the 40th anniversaries of Joy Division’s two hugely-venerated albums ‘Unknown Pleasures’ and ‘Closer’. These are two of the most important records of my life, so I’ve probably read more about this band than any other, and that got me thinking: what single discovery always stands out for me? And can I add any observations to the existing mountain of study? 

Perhaps the insight I find most fascinating - and pleasingly ironic - is that this band, so heavily-scrutinised for over four decades, apparently never dwelt for a moment on what they were creating.

‘We never talked about it or thought about it. It just worked.’ - Stephen Morris

‘We just completely ignored each other, we were all on our own island, and we just made sure that what we were doing sounded great.’ - Bernard Sumner. 

It beggars belief that they didn’t discuss each other’s parts or the peculiar brew they were fermenting, but it seems they really didn’t. What they were doing was so incredibly new: striking out from a punk foundation, with Warsaw, into oddball hybrids of dance, dirge and ambience, you’d have thought they would’ve dissected it. But then again, isn’t that part of the delirious wonder? That they haphazardly conjured this peculiar synergy?

Interesting too, the way producer Martin Hannett both blended into, and ran with, this sense of separate islands. He blended by being an island all of his own, unheeding of the band’s protestations about how washed-out he was making them sound, and burrowed himself deep in the studio at night, mixing intuitively, away from the blowing conches of distraction. He then produced the islands concept further by isolating each player off into a clear, sonic space of their own, even going so far as to make Stephen Morris dismantle his entire drum kit and play each component separately. 

Regarding the lack of reflection within the group, I’m certain this is part of the appeal of Joy Division, especially for other musicians with fond memories of their first musical explorations:  They seem to represent that pristine state of naivety that accidentally stumbles into greatness, as fresh new buds of youth, before they learnt what a diminished chord was or got too attached to their lovers. They were the fools who rushed in… and found treasure.  

It’s also pretty clear that none of them - with the possible exception of drummer Stephen Morris - were particularly accomplished players: Hooky had a tendency (that sometimes accidentally worked) of playing the wrong notes because he couldn’t hear his bass properly; Bernard’s guitar parts were often exquisitely simple and Ian’s voice, well, that veered between a sort of winded Johnny Cash and pitched-down Kermit The Frog. And yet these unpolished, disparate cogs all aligned to propel an overarching machine of shocking power. 

Stephen Morris felt it all began to gel for him when the music evoked pictures or visions of an unreal world: ‘Like a scene in a movie, or a landscape passing by a windscreen. A world that Ian described, Bernard punctuated, Hooky steered and I propelled us through.’

According to Peter Hook’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ autobiography, Ian (who actively educated the others with his broad record collection) was the one who did actually engage in some scrutiny…

‘The way it worked was that he’d listen to us jamming, and then direct the song until it was… a song. He stood there like a conductor and picked out the best bits… He had an ear for us, a great ear… Which was why, when we lost him, it made everything so difficult.’

In a way, he was acting as an arranger or producer. Interestingly, these arrangements had to stay locked in heir heads as, for a long while, they didn’t even have a tape machine to record rehearsals.

Live, Ian’s chaotic choreography has always been something of a talking point. There’s something very cathartic there but what is it? When you look at stills or footage of him live what is the predominant quality on show? To me it’s exhaustion. He is the physical embodiment of the overworked. It’s an aspect of all our lives rarely reflected in any art form. You may have slumbering figures in paintings the world over but that’s tranquility, where sleep is allowed. Ian evokes the weary single parent, rushing through a thousand chores whilst dead on their feet, he is the marathon runner on his last legs, or the bleary bee-keeper whose charges are rioting around him.

Put another way, for most performers throughout history, exhaustion is the last thing they’d want to display. You can’t imagine Beyonce making a virtue out of looking drained and horribly breathless, can you? 

We know, sadly, it was a mixture of marriage upheaval and a gruelling schedule of intense performances, all weighed down further by the severe chemical cosh of primitive epilepsy drugs that made him so. But, regardless, I feel his iconic weariness elevates him to a sort of patron saint of exhaustion; and fatigued souls everywhere should wear a pendant, like a St. Christopher, of Ian’s heavy-lidded visage lolling backwards, yearning for a pillow that never comes.  

Photo by Kevin Cummins

The eternal question seems to be whether the lingering appeal of Joy Division is down to Ian killing himself at 23 on the brink of major success. Of course the music is exceptional in its particular intersection between beauty and disintegration, but I say yes - much of the allure comes from his early death. 

He was one of the most authentic and startling frontmen of all time. I wish he’d turned that corner and seen another way. I wonder what he would’ve created. But… there’s simply no denying that a colossal part of their innate mystery is that Ian can’t spill the beans about what it all meant. In a world where artists now go around politely with a begging bowl for ‘likes’ and sales, exposing every part of their lives and processes on social media, Ian Curtis is - and will remain - the ultimate closed book, the zenith of mystique. And he can never destroy that by being plump and over-explanatory. 

‘One of the great things about Joy Division is they’ll never disappoint you.’ Stephen Morris. 

The door was open then shut, then slammed in our face. 

The weary young man is painted into eternity. The albums are the black box flight recorders containing the pilot’s last oblique mutterings and yells, the final wavering clues to what went wrong in the dying minutes. He seemed to give so much; but gave away so little. And by his death, he gave it life.