Love Will Tear Us Apart is a song by English rock band Joy Division, released in June 27, 1980 as a non-album single. Its lyrics were inspired by lead singer Ian Curtis‘s marital problems and struggles with epilepsy. The single was released the month after his suicide.
The song was certified platinum in the UK, selling over 600,000 copies, and has an ongoing legacy as a defining song of the era. Rolling Stone named it one of the 500 greatest songs ever in 2004, 2010, and 2021.
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” was written about Ian Curtis‘ troubled relationship with his wife, Deborah Woodruff, whom he married in August 1975. Additionally, it deals with his own struggles with epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with in 1979, and the overwhelming stress of holding down a day job and his growing career as a singer.
At a Joy Division gig in October 1979, Curtis met Belgian journalist and music promoter Annik Honoré and the two began a relationship, which caused further distress between Curtis and Woodruff.
Speaking about her relationship with Curtis in a 2010 interview with Belgian magazine supplement Focus, Honoré said:
It was a completely pure and platonic relationship, very childish, very chaste… I did not have a sexual relationship with Ian. He was on medication, which rendered it a nonphysical relationship. I am so fed up that people question my word or his. People can say whatever they want, but I am the only person to have his letters… One of his letters says that the relationship with his wife Deborah had already finished prior to us meeting each other.
According to Curtis‘s wife Deborah, to create the single cover photo, which was made by Trevor Key, the song title was etched upon a sheet of metal; this was aged with acid and exposed to the weather to create the appearance of a stone slab. For the 12″ version of the single, a photograph of a grieving angel on the Ribaudo family tomb in Genoa’s Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno (sculpted by Onorato Toso c. 1910) was used. The photograph was taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff in 1978.
Tracklist:
Side A
- Love Will Tear Us Apart
Side B
- These Days
- Love Will Tear Us Apart (Pennine version)
Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division Lyrics
When routine bites hard and ambitions are low
And resentment rides high but emotions won’t grow
And we’re changing our ways, taking different roads
Then love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again
Why is the bedroom so cold? You’ve turned away on your side
Is my timing that flawed? Our respect runs so dry
Yet there’s still this appeal that we’ve kept through our lives
But love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again
Do you cry out in your sleep, all my failings exposed?
There’s a taste in my mouth as desperation takes hold
Just that something so good, just can’t function no more
But love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again
Then love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again
Songwriters: Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner
Joy Division
Ian Curtis: lead vocals, guitar (1979 – 1980)
Bernard Sumner: lead guitar, keyboards (1976 – 1980)
Peter Hook: bass, backing and occasional lead vocals (1976 – 1980)
Stephen Morris: drums, percussion (1977 – 1980)
Ian Kevin Curtis (July 15, 1956 – May 18, 1980).
