It was fitting that BBC4 recently aired a new documentary on Joy Division, chronicling the Manchester band’s story, as this year is the 35th anniversary of the release of their second and final album “Closer”.

The Joy Division documentary started with a look at the 1976 Sex Pistols gig that is now credited with lighting Manchester’s music scene in the late 1970s. With the participation of all surviving Joy Division band members, the documentary chronicled the group’s rise to fame during a time of great social and political change in 1970s Manchester. The documentary featured unseen live footage, photos, videos and newly discovered audiotapes, including a haunting regression by Ian Curtis, facilitated by Bernard Sumner, that was to be a portent of gloom and doom with regard to his subsequent suicide.

Inevitably and perfectly understandably much of the Joy Division documentary focused on lead singer and songwriter Ian Curtis and his eventual suicide. That was to be expected as Ian Curtis was the driving force behind Joy Division. He was the dark, manic power behind the sound and lyrics of the band – incredibly charismatic and ultimately too sensitive for the world he occupied. For the Record Press author, the way Ian Curtis projected his voice and the dark nature of his words is all too reminiscent of Jim Morrison’s work with The Doors. Sadly both men bowed out too soon, but by doing so created the myth and the legend that they are today.

And so it was that Joy Division’s second and final album “Closer” became Ian Curtis’ suicide letter. Thirty five years on, you cannot listen to Joy Division’s final album “Closer” without feeling the poignancy & melancholy of it’s post Ian Curtis suicide context and status…:”Closer” was released two months after Ian Curtis’ suicide. All the clues of Ian Curtis’ depressive, hopeless state of mind are there in the lyrics. NME recently described “Closer” as: “a bleak, harrowing swansong for one of the greatest bands of the 20th century.” What finer tribute and epitaph for Joy Division and Ian Curtis?…….

Which are your favourite Joy Division songs? Let us know in the Reply Box below.

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