[the intensity] of simplicity

A year or two ago, a very kind gentleman and I were discussing New Order's Temptation. I don't know why I didn't mention another of their songs, in the Youtube below.

It had always seemed to me that I was alone in thinking this a very moving song. Simple and simplistic? Yes. Singer unsure of himself after the death of the band's driving force? Yes. A couple of dicey chords here and there? Yes. But none of that is the real point. As one youtube viewer wrote:

A drum beat. A few strings plucked on guitars lead and bass. A finger on a couple of synth keys, and a bloke singing. Basic stuff. So why does it reach into my guts, pull them out and unravel them slowly. It always has though, ever since I first put it on my deck.

... to which someone else replied:

Best comment I've seen on Youtube about any video. Well said, and I feel the same way.

... to which the guy replied:

Well thanks kindly. Very nice of you to say so. My comments came from the heart and I didn't know if I was being a bit naff to say them. But this song, and particularly the release of breath at 4 mins...... just does stuff for me that I can't explain easily.

That was the whole thing with Joy Division/early New Order. I fear quoting Artur Schnabel who said, in 1961:

Children are given Mozart because of the small quantity of the notes; grown-ups avoid Mozart because of the great quality of the notes.

I fear putting in that quote because some will deliberately misunderstand that there is no comparison being drawn in any way. One is classic and the other popular music.

And yet, Joy Division/early New Order most certainly had that indefinable something about them. You could play their songs but you could never capture that strange intensity, the intensity of youth, hope, despair, alienation, all those things. Unrequited love, lost love - it all came together in those mournful tones.

I never quite understood why this band had the capacity to move the soul but one afternoon, something happened which compounded the feeling.



I was driving south over the North York Moors, fulfilling a silly idea I had to take a French girl I knew back to France. I don't remember a lot of it but do remember the end of a misty-grey, overcast, threatening afternoon, just before the downpour, the Esk Valley awesome. I also remember the incongruity of the French girl beside me in the car, superb in her unaffectedness and when the song began on the player, just the moors, the vehicle and her in the vicinity, she was moved by the atmosphere, the intensity of the scene and I felt privileged to be part of it.

I wish I had the photo to show you but it's probably lost somewhere in Russia or Sicily now. No matter, the one below is close enough to what she looked like so I think you'd understand why the idea of driving to France did not seem OTT at the time.