touching from a distance ian curtis and joy division

My mother offered to come with me, but I refused, confident that Ian would not be there. “As it was well past 10 am, nearly midday, i dressed and prepared to take Natalie home. He talked of our life together, romance and passion his love for me, his love for Natalie and his hate for Annik …By the time he had finished writing, he told me, it was dawn and he could hear the birds singing.”

It was long, very intimate letter in the same sprawling capitals he used to write his songs, He did say he wished he was dead, but didn´t actually say that it was his intention to kill himself. He tool Natalie´s photograph down from the wall, retrieved our wedding picture from the drawer and sat down to write me a letter. In the pantry was the all-but empty whisky bottle from which he squeezed every last drop. “After I had gone, Ian made himself still more coffee. This turned out to be Stroszek, a Werner Herzog film about a European living in American who kills himself rather than choose between to women.” “I also heard that he told Rob Gretton he was coming to Macclesfield to watch a film on TV which he felt would upset his father if the watched it with him.

Ian Curtis. The soundtrack of post industrial decaying Manchester and the soundscape of frustrations, pains, failures and disorders expressed with the darkest and most eloquent baritone you´ll ever heard. A man´s poetry that Tony Wilson once described as “archaic English language and nineteen century grammatical constructions” and Paul Morley once compared with the likes of JG Ballard, Mary Shelley, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka or Fiódor Dostoyevski. T his is the tragic story of a man who dealt with the darkest side of human existence leaving behind, one of the most honest and obscure legacies in pop music. We all know the legend: After watching Stroszek – a Werner Herzog film – listening to Iggy Pop´s The Idiot and clouding his wisdom with a bottle of whisky while he was alone in his house at Macclesfield, Ian used a rope to end with his internal conflict mainly caused by Joy Division´s first tour ahead in the United States, a bizarre love triangle, the destructive effects of epilepsy and a staggering depression.

Today´s thirty four years since Ian´s tormented mind, weak body and lyrical genius, left a 23 year-old miserable existence. That will be the end.” (Ian Curtis, Radio Lancashire Interview, 1979) I think when we stop doing that, I think, well, that will be time to pack it in.

“Basically, we want to play and enjoy what we like playing. Ian Curtis´ last day, 34 years ago Alejandro De Luna

Touching from a distance ian curtis and joy division