(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 11 January 2026 16:15, UK
While the world of music can bring us all an insurmountable amount of joy, the industry is also flooded with sadness. Ian Curtis brought joy to many, but his story is inherently a tough one.
His voice remains one of the most instantly recognisable in music. It’s low, supple, and yet incredibly sweet-sounding. While his range may not be that which you would expect from other vocalists, there was no questioning the romanticism with which he sang. In fact, if anything, his vocals sounded all the more authentic because of how little he exaggerated when he sang.
And it wasn’t just his voice, either. His musical ability, his lyricism, and his overall vision when it came to art were incredibly special. There is no escaping just how much of an impact Curtis had on indie music as a whole, as there are still bands trying to tap into the magic of that Joy Division sound, but failing to convey it in the same way.
While he was celebrated as an artist and had a great deal of success as a musician, Curtis’s life was also riddled with all kinds of trouble. At 23 years old, the singer took his own life. He struggled a great deal with epilepsy and depression, which, combined with multiple strains on his life, proved too much. His death remains a real musical tragedy, but his music lives on in the hearts of those who listen.
His words are also inscribed on his gravestone. There is a great deal of mystique surrounding the band and Curtis as an individual; people tend to romanticise struggle a lot more than they should, something which made it difficult for his band members to move on after his passing. John Peel once commented on the mystique surrounding his passing and criticised the way some people dealt with it.
“Obviously, the death of Ian Curtis sort of mythologised [Joy Division] to a degree to which I think the surviving members of the band must have found very difficult to cope with,” he said, “A very melancholy thing to have to live with.”
Peel continued, “I still get demo tapes from America and from Europe by bands which are quite clearly influenced by nothing as much as they’re influenced by Joy Division. You get a bit fed up with it, really.”
The idea of Joy Division floats around in the heads of budding musicians around the world in different forms, but for the surviving members, they remember the band in their own unique way. As such, it seems fitting that on Curtis’ grave stone, they inscribed the title of their most famous song ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.
There are obviously plenty of meanings that people can take from these lyrics on Curtis’ grave, but at their heart, they are just a representation of what he gave to the world while he was here. The song is one of Joy Division’s best, and in the same way those who knew Curtis have their own individual memories of him, so too do listeners of that song have their own feelings attached to it. The mythology of the band will always be present, but it seems better to just remember him and the band for what they were, and that is exceptional musicians who we’re lucky to have listened to.
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