"Ceremony" By New Order is a Song Lost in Time
Released in January 1981 and originally written by singer Ian Curtis of Joy Division, the original lyrics were lost because Curtis never bothered to write them down.
A cult favorite (and my favorite), Joy Division is a post-punk band from Manchester, England that may be polarizing to some because of their unsavory use of Nazi imagery.
After the tragic suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis at the age of 23, the remaining members formed New Order, taking the group in a new direction. Among the many things in their past, though, nothing has piqued my curiosity more than the original version of “Ceremony,” originally written for Joy Division.
See, Curtis never wrote down his lyrics. The only evidence of what he may have sung are found in three terrible live recordings of the original Joy Division version where the vocals are barely audible. More haunting is the fact that “Ceremony” was the last song the band ever played together. Ian Curtis killed himself four days after the group’s last performance.
In an attempt to stay true to the original, the remaining band members went through Ian’s notebooks to find the original lyrics, but according to his wife, Debrah Curtis:
"When New Order wanted to record Ceremony and In a Lonely Place, they asked to see all Ian's notes because they were convinced that the lyrics to those songs would still be with the rest of his work. They studied them intently, but the relevant lyrics were not there. This isn't strange; Ian would dispose of things he no longer needed."
According to the band’s mythos, singer Bernard Summer used a graphic equalizer to listen to the old recordings of “Ceremony” and approximate its lyrics. Between all the known recordings from Joy Division to New Order, the theme remains the same. It’s about a man dealing with a failing marriage and is overcome with grief as he thinks back to memories past, never to happen again.
My favorite things about this song are the mystery, the sorrow, the guitar pulsating between notes, and that first line: “This is why events unnerve me/ They find it all, a different story.” This line works well on two levels. First, it illustrates the song's tension, as the narrator's relationship with his wife is so strained they are now living in two different worlds. Second, it encapsulates the tension between the original lyrics and the reinterpreted ones, lost between two worlds, showing a different story.