r/JoyDivision

We have all tried, I think, since 1980, on that day Bernard Sumner and the band sat in a studio feeding Ceremony through equalization, to find Ian Curtis’s words for this song.

In the wake of his death, there was considerable amount of reflection on Ian’s words, and a sense of frustration for losing him, that brewed the perfect environment for his fellow band mates and thousands of dedicated fans to wonder what Ian was saying, all that time ago, in that cold, dark, brick lined room at TJ Davidsons, four days before his suicide.

I have listened to the song on many different sound systems over the years, with different equalizations, and have started to come to the possible conclusion that while some words are definitely there, others could easily be nothing but garbled things that sound like words, and thus are perceived by different people to say different things.

For example: “I’ll break them all, no mercy shown”, is obviously English and I think there’s no dispute that this is what Ian said.

But I’m not convinced “this is why events unnerve me,” for example, is even remotely close to what Ian was saying. In fact, among some of the other lines in the first verse, I’m not sure Ian is really saying anything at all.

The idea is not so far fetched. By April/May 1980, Ian Curtis’s health was in serious decline. He was having increasing seizures, exacerbated by the band’s heavy touring schedule, late nights and heavy alcohol abuse.

As a vocalist, he may have had some idea of where he was taking the lyrics to Ceremony, as evidenced by his conviction with “I’ll break them all, no mercy shown” and words like “forever” being clearly distinguishable.

But overall, other pieces of the song may have been nothing more than a sort of “gibberish scratch track”, designed to guide him on a recording as he wrote words and reviewed the band’s rehearsals to see what “sounds” and specific words he liked.

If he really did say “avenues lined with trees”, he recycled it from an earlier Joy Division song. There’s little doubt he would have changed the line as the song matured to avoid using his own lyric across multiple songs.

It is also known, that, in the aftermath of his death, original handwritten lyrics sheets for Ceremony could not be found by family and band mates.

Could Ian have only been in a very early stage of piecing together the words he wanted Ceremony to say? There is every possibility.

Until a lyric sheet can be found, or some future, unknown technology can find definitive results for what Ian was saying on that rehearsal recording, only one person knows what was being said into that microphone… And he died on May 18th, 1980.

Rest in Peace Ian Curtis.

Positive Irish Times review: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/review/2026/10/02/joy-division-eternal-review-a-buttoned-down-band-unbowed-unravelled-and-gloriously-unleashed/

I don't have a DVD player...