I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand,
Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man?
How NOT to write about music – 84. Joy Division
No, fuck it. This is still How NOT to write about music – 84. A Certain Ratio
No apologies. I want you to step outside the boundaries.
————————————————–
This is the true heart of darkness. An unrelenting gaze, inward-turned. Hopeless, relentless. No relief, no let-out. Building and building. Terrifying. Bleak. Helpless. No light enters. No light escapes. Murder on the dance floor. A psychic dance hall. All that is left is disbelief, the aftermath. I try to catch some memories, but jealousy just creeps back into my mind.
Increasingly, I find myself listening to collections of early acr cassettes and singles on the train up to Clapham Junction. The volume is too low and fails to blot out the outside world (“reality”) but even if the volume was 1,000 times louder and shattered my eardrums it would still fail to blot out the outside world. All the talk right now is centered around one of A Certain Ratio’s better-known late 1970s contemporaries – and that’s nice, it’s always good to see the one linear version of history reinforced time and time again by the same people (what’s the matter, didn’t Topping kill himself?) – but this is the music I return to, time and time again, in my futile attempts to blot out the world. I wish I could.
I only wish I could.
This is the true heart of darkness. An unrelenting gaze, inward-turned. Hopeless, relentless. No relief, no let-out. Building and building. Terrifying. Bleak. Helpless. No light enters. No light escapes. Murder on the dance floor. A psychic dance hall. All that is left is disbelief, the aftermath. I try to catch some memories, but jealousy just creeps back into my mind.
The band’s two founder members (Simon Topping and Peter Terrell) left in 1982.
Unknown Pleasures is a great album sure, but it isn’t even the greatest album on Factory Records.
———————-
As I look back
my murky past
was packed but
I know nothing I can do about it
I tried to carry some memories
but jealousy just creeps back into my mind
I work all day
I drink all night
My life is just an angry blur
———————-
A home, I’ve always wanted a home
I’ve always wanted a home of my own,
I’ve always wanted a home.
A wife, with eyes of green
And soft white skin,
To bear me a child.
I’ve always wanted a child
A child, who is good and strong
That would never go wrong
I’ve always wanted a child
I was present at my child’s birth,
I was there, to see him open his eyes
I always wanted a child.
His back, his back is coarse.
And his legs are bent,
I’ve gone over to my wife.
You’ve given me the wrong child
I don’t want him to die in the home that I own
I don’t want him to die
I don’t want him to die,
In the home that I own.
———————-
How NOT to write about music 