More often than not a song will incite some personal response within me, causing me to tumble down a rabbit hole of thoughts as I try apply the tracks messaging to the wider scope of life. Rarely however, I act on that instinct straight away, set up in front of my computer and let my fingers loose. New Order’s terrific ‘Ceremony’ however, did exactly that. Sometimes a song just finds you at the exact right time. Everything aligns, each punchy lyric hits harder than ever before, every pluck of a bass reverberates throughout your very being and you hit the repeat button time and time again. When this happens, you absolutely have to engage with that feeling.

It’s no secret that the sound of life is music. From the helplessly minute to the terrifyingly large, each shade of human emotion is portrayed in its own unique way, and in the words of John Keating from Dead Poets Society, this is because “The human race is filled with passion!”. New Order’s Ceremony is overflowing with raw, complex, relatable passion, a passion which is evident not only in Bernard Sumner’s vocal performance, but the track’s recognisable desperation to be seen and listened to. It wants people to relate, it wants people to consul it and say, ‘yes yes I know what you mean’. Phil Cunningham opens the track with the guitar’s equivalent of a cry for attention. Only 28 seconds in and he’s already seemingly wrestling with this emotional beast, as you can almost picture it writhing in his hands, begging to be let loose. It grabs your attention, not only with its mesmerising energy but its tragically recognisable desperation.

So where is all this desperation coming from? I think the answer is found both in the lyrics and the songs haunting backstory. Previously Joy Division, New Order are a band who begun because something ended. They fly, because someone fell. After just two albums, the mystical lead singer of Joy Division, Ian Curtis, tragically committed suicide having struggled with epilepsy. At just 23, his family lost him too soon, the world lost an absorbing talent, and Joy Division lost their identity. Questions for the band ran rampant; How could he be gone? What do we do now? Should we go on? Who would be the vocalist?

What do we do with Ceremony?

Before Curtis died, the band were working on Ceremony and Curtis was writing the lyrics. Frozen in time, the original track was never finished, as the true lyrics got lost into the void. To this day only 3 versions of Curtis’ edition remain, each as haunting as the last. Seemingly thrusting a desperate hand from the abyss, these versions eternally remain unfinished, unclear and ambiguous, yet you can’t help but feel that Curtis was trying to tell us something. One final ode to the world he operated within. The remaining band members simply couldn’t leave this desperate wish unfulfilled. Everyone needed closure.

Metamorphosing into something wholly new but comfortingly similar, Joy Division restructured with Bernard Sumner stepping into the heavy shoes of lead vocalist, and Gillian Gilbert joining as keyboardist and guitarist, as Stephen Morris, Phil Cunningham, and Peter Hook remained in their existing roles. From the brink of extinction, New Order were born. It was perhaps fitting then their first release encompassed this notion that occasionally in life, the final note of a beautiful melody gracefully ends, paving the way for a symphony of new beginnings. Ceremony bridged the gap between what Joy Division had been and what New Order would become, it was about endings and subsequent beginnings.

The crushing lyrics and Curtis’ baritone howl had defined the band. But under the surface had always been a whole world of swirling synths, dancey disco-inspired beats, and melodic bass lines that would soon come to define the direction of New Order. From the fire came a phoenix, as Ceremony is not only dangerously upbeat, but more hopeful in its lyrical content, even when faced with such a harrowing past. They took something tragic, the death of a friend, and turned it into hope for the future. Up to Bernard Sumner to decipher Curtis’ lyrics from terrible audio recordings, the lyrics take a natural ambiguity, and that only plays into the tracks meaning even more. Nothing is certain within Ceremony. Is it sad? Is it happy? The song blurs the lines between emotional conventions. Just as events from our own lives blur the lines between tragedy and opportunity.

Heavily disputed on the internet, the lyrics suggest a number of possibilities – with the two most popular being that the track is about either a wedding or a funeral, both clear demonstrations of a ‘ceremony’. Two powerfully antithetical realities, such vague imagery is intended to intertwine and overlap so the track can become whatever you need it to be. It serves as an outlet of hope, or heartbreak, for your own situation, allowing your own ambiguous experience to be seen by another. With this messaging in mind, the opening lyrics read:

Notice whom for wheels are turning

Turn again and turn towards this time

For many, the song opens with the scene of a hearse snaking its way up towards the cemetery gates. Inch by inch the wheels ‘turn again’, as ‘this time’ it is the narrator’s partner’s time to leave. Their time has come to move on, and the wheels of change turn for them. Later on, the line “Avenues all lined with trees”, further reinforces this scene of a funeral procession moving towards their destination. The metaphorical nail in the coffin soon follows as Sumner, with his unwavering acceptance of life’s vicissitudes, utters the line “Picture me when you start watching”. Such a line achingly conveys the profound desire of the grieving lover that their departed soulmate continually pictures their muse as they watch down from above in their next chapter. A heart-wrenching request which brings the shattering reality of loss under the spotlight, whilst simultaneously working as a testament to the possibility of an eternal connection that transcends the bounds of mortality, as both the bereaved and deceased stand by “Forever watching love grow”. Equal parts tragic and hopeful, the double-edged nature of Ceremony demonstrates an understanding that these events are part of life, no matter how much they scar us, and must happen for new experiences and growth to stand in their place.

This poignant message is emphasised further, by viewing the track through an alternate lens. To focus on the same opening passage, the wheels turning could also allude to a much-needed change happening in someone’s life. After harbouring so much hope for a positive future, for so long, at last, the wheels of change are moving, as “this time” the individual’s efforts will be rewarded. Throughout the track, the phrase “this time” is repeated, suggesting that the narrator has tried tirelessly to achieve a certain outcome, and it’s within this very moment that their efforts finally accumulate into everything they ever dreamed of. Some have read the track as being an ode to the complexities and longing for love, with one passage hammering home our determination to express and receive love:

Oh, I’ll break them down, no mercy shown

Heaven knows, it’s got to be this time

Personally, I don’t see the wedding imagery some people do; however, these two lines certainly convey a recognisable resilience to pursue love, despite the prior hardships faced. The clause “it’s got to be this time” suggests a steadfast resoluteness to express oneself to the person they love the most, even if they’ve done it before, even if they’ve failed before, this time it will be different, “heaven knows” this time love will finally be found. Maybe the narrator has listened to their romantic interest’s needs, perhaps they have banished their inner demons, maybe they have just tried so many times their partner to-be has simply been ground down to settling for them. Nobody will ever truly know. But what we as the listener can see, is a door close, and another one open. The icy existence of solitude has melted away, beckoning in a warmer present, co-inhabited by two individuals, stood side-by-side “Forever watching love grow”.

Ceremony isn’t saccharin sweet; it operates within the confusing, ever-changing realm of life. Off the back of Curtis’ death, the remaining band members were forced to look inward, do they buckle under the weight of tragedy, or come to the understanding that not all closed doors result in the end of the road. Stemming from the track’s flexible ambiguity, there’s a happiness to Ceremony which derives from the knowledge that all good things must come to an end, in order for something better to stand in their place. We are reminded that life isn’t as black and white as we perhaps hope it to be sometimes, and it’s down to us as the consumer of life’s experiences to seek out the endless shades of grey which float in the middle. They may seem ambiguous and elusive to us now, but the more we focus our gaze, the more we see the black in the white, the white in the black, and a spectrum of hope, rage, suffering, and tranquillity in-between.

It’s songs like Ceremony that scream out into the world, pleading to be listened to. Answer the call. You will find something in return.