Love Will Tear Us Apart

Alix Harvey

The song "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again," written and performed by the seventies post-punk band Joy Division, crashed through the barriers of obscurity and skyrocketed them to fame. It was their first and only hit single; this was a direct result of lead singer Ian Curtis's death a month after it was released. It has been named by Rolling Stone as one of the best singles of all time in their 2002 annual countdown of the top 500 songs, and has been widely used in movies such as Donnie Darko. Overall it has been a highly praised and influential song in the music business. It has had many adaptations from bands of many different languages and musical styles, but the modern emo-pop band, Fall Out Boy, has the most current and popular one. This version, however, has received mixed acclaim. Many people who despise Fall Out Boy’s commercial success say the cover is a disgrace to the legacy of Joy Division and Ian Curtis, but others say the adaptation is well done and their arrangement does the song its justice while updating it for today’s commercial emo crowd.

A punk sound reverberates throughout the original version with Curtis's rough voice grating through some of lyrics. Ian’s singing gives out a very distant feel, with their distinct stifled and distressing sound. The guitars are harsh, and have a synthesizer in the background that was characteristic to songs of the eighties, and a trademark of Joy Division’s music. These qualities could be considered flaws, but are ultimately what makes the song so powerful almost thirty years later. But the synthesizer is the same melody in almost all of their songs, most noticeably in Shadowplay, which can become annoying after a period of time, along with Ian’s distinct baritone voice. The song was said to have been written about Ian Curtis’ marriage troubles shown in lyrics such as:

“Why is the bedroom so cold
Turned away on your side?”

And give a glimpse of what his frame of mind was like in the few months leading up to his suicide, seen in lyrics like these:

“Do you cry out in your sleep
All my failings expose?
Get a taste in my mouth
As desperation takes hold”

Fall Out Boys version has a slightly different arrangement then Joy Divisions. To update it for a modern crowd and to make it sound more of a song that Fall Out Boy would have composed, it has gotten rid of the synthesizer, and the bass is barely, if at all, used. Patrick Stump’s vocals are strong and clear, and sound slightly more heated then Ian’s own vocals. It doesn’t have the punk influences that the original version contained, but has more of a polished emo sound that is characteristic to Fall Out Boy’s music. The chorus is faster then in the original version, which contributes to the more aggressive sound to it. The song would in general do extremely well on Top Forty radio as a single for Fall Out Boy.

In my opinion, both versions are interesting. Each of them has their endearing and not so endearing qualities. But, Fall Out Boy’s cover is too clean and perfect for me. Part of what makes Joy Division’s song so great and haunting is the fact that Ian Curtis’ vocals are authentic and rough, not produced by in a recording studio like Patrick Stump’s. That is what made rock music back in the seventies and the early eighties more real and relatable, when the artist had full control over the music and it felt more unique. In most of today’s more popular music, the melodies are interchangeable and the lyrics are generic clichéd sarcasm and irony. The music business changes, and while Joy Division had some commercial success in their day, they would not fare over so well in today’s market. Music tastes have changed, like so many other things do.

Both songs are well fit for the music time periods they are in, and the audiences they are directed to. While Joy Division’s song will always be the most widely recognized, Fall Out Boy did an admirable job of trying to pay homage to the legacy of Ian Curtis while still staying true to their commercial emo roots. They have done a good job of introducing a classic post-punk song to today’s teenagers who might have never have heard the song if it weren’t for them to make a cover of it for the Internet. While many of them might not know who the original artist was, they are still now more unknowingly musically well rounded then they were then the three minutes and twenty-two seconds before hitting play on Fall Out Boy’s Myspace page.