So This is Permanence: Joy Division Lyrics and Notebooks

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You just took the cue from [Ian] singing and it built up to the vocals. It sounds really simple but that was one of the first one things we did after we finished Unknown Pleasures. I think it started with something that’s like a northern soul song, which we’ve kind of done on “Interzone”, which is the beat in the middle, then I just started playing half time and then we got the slow verse part for it. I really like the way it’s kind of moody and sort of snakes along then suddenly it gets really very spirited. Furious, I think. A little bit like “Insight” on Unknown Pleasures, but a lot more accomplished. As with all artists (and there are many) taken away from us at a very young age and in their creative prime, there are three things which must always been born in mind, namely:

Draft lyrics written on scrap paper his wife Deborah brought home from her job at the local council Photograph: PR Some of the most famous songs of the band include "Love Will Tear Us Apart" , "She's Lost Control", “Transmission” , and "Dead Souls". However, in the case of Ian Curtis – the last point is a moot one; the overwhelming majority of everything said and written about Curtis since his death has (for the most part) not been media fuelled ghoulish sanctification or hyperbole. Ian Curtis really was as gifted and talented a writer and performer as is written. So This Is Permanence collects his handwritten words, setting them next to typeset versions of what they would become. (Sometimes they're the same, but there are plenty of differences.) The book-lovely and clothbound to resemble the band's posthumous collection Still-also features reproductions of old fan letters and flyers that Curtis' widow had kept." Reading This Is Permanence it is obvious that the main influence of Curtis’ lyrics was human suffering whether that be from the victims or perpetrators point of view. In his early writings, when he refers to “I” or “we” Curtis is placing himself into the narrative more as an actor or storyteller yet as his well documented personal issues begin to take hold, we see the “I” and “we” become literal building up towards the final album Closer and singles such as Atmosphere and Love Will Tear Us Apart.Well, here you can see the lines surrounding the couplet, and Curtis’s crossing-through of an alternative line from earlier in the song: “to see what went wrong”. Turn to “She’s Lost Control” and there’s another line that didn’t make it to the record: “and in horror that one day I’d learn the truth ...” You needn’t read too much into such omissions, but you can spend a fruitful few minutes speculating on why the lines were dropped. The media amplification, deification and santification of a lost artist as something far greater than they ever were, or ever could be This is Permanence' reveals the personal writings of Joy Division lead singer and influential songwriter Ian Curtis in a beautiful cloth-bound anthology. Curtis committed suicide in 1980 before the British band's first US tour, and the book includes a foreword by his widow, Deborah, as well as song lyrics, an appendix listing his personal book library and a selection of interviews from his relatively short but important career." Inside front of case to have paper envelope attached, containing exclusive high-quality print reproduction of ‘She’s Lost Control’ lyrics as per notebooks, also to be signed and numbered The fact of the band’s relatively few releases belies the power and enduring fascination its music holds, especially in light of Curtis’s tragic suicide in 1980 on the eve of the band’s first American tour.

Faber Social is proud to announce the publication of this stunning book in a limited edition of 200 copies, signed by Deborah Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Jon Savage and Bernard Sumner. For those who don't know the story of Ian, he was the lyricist, songwriter and front man of the band Joy Division. He suffered from seizures which grew considerably worse as the bands fame increased. Curtis was born in 1956 and committed suicide on 18 May 1980. His wife has written a biography of his life, which was published 1995 titled "Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division". Also included in the book as an appendix are artwork, gig posters, book covers, fan letters and other ephemera - kept by Curtis along with his hand written lyrics, prose and other writings, reportedly in various plastic bags. An early version of Love Will Tear Us Apart. Curtis played with variations of ‘your’, ‘this ’, and ‘the bedroom’ in earlier drafts Photograph: PRTo celebrate the 35th anniversary of Ian Curtis' premature passing, Peter Hook gathered his acclaimed The Light, plus occasional extra Rowetta, for an epic three-hour concert featuring every Joy Division song. If you think performing nearly four-dozen songs continuously is a piece of piss, kindly shit off and read about the new Will Young single instead. If you care about live music and, most importantly here, the legacy of an enigmatic, talented but ultimately normal working-class lad with extreme epilepsy (hence the chosen charity), Macclesfield's unassuming Christ Church sets the scene for what sounds like quite a show. Of course, many of these lyrics have been published before in Touching From A Distance and the Heart and Soul box set and they are certainly worth revisiting it is, however, This Is Permanence’s appendices that are the true revelations. In them we get to see lyrics in their alternative and early forms plus prose, artwork, fanzines, letters, and books that Ian was drawn to. It is in this section where we truly get to see Curtis’ work ethic. Lyrics are altered, titles are swapped (for example Shadowplay is originally entitled Interzone) and we see a writer who is obviously conflicted about revealing his true feelings. This is none more explicit than in his reworking of Love Will Tear Us Apart which sees him alternating from first person to observer, from “this” to “your”.

It is fascinating to read Curtis’ song lyrics in their original hand written versions with visible deletions, corrections, changes and additions – it gives us at least a little insight into the mind of Ian Curtis and the process of his song writing. Clear also is the development and progression in Curtis’ song writing abilities over the short course of time they were written (1977-80). She says she does, occasionally, take out the lyrics and read through them. “Having the whole thing together as a body of work, the music and now the lyrics, is wonderful,” she says. “I wish he was here. He’d be so proud.”The lyrics for Joy Division’s 1979 single Transmission, in Curtis’s distinctive capitalised handwriting Photograph: PR So This Is Permanence presents the lyrics and personal notebooks of one of the most enigmatic and influential music artists of the late twentieth century, Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. So This Is Permanent – The Complete works of Joy Division. – On the 18th May 2015 Peter Hook & the Light preformed the complete works of Joy Division, Live At Christ Church Macclesfield, Ian Curtis’s boyhood church. The book opens with a foreword by Ian’s widow Deborah (whose Touching From A Distance remains a beautifully honest account of her life with Ian and a benchmark in myth debunking autobiography) who gives a brief overview of her relationship with Ian and her reasons behind releasing these writings. She explains how his writings “became an extension of his body” and how he was very private and protective of them. The gig is unsurprisingly littered with dedications - Atmosphere for Ian, Ice Age for best-mate Twinny and tellingly Ceremony for Barney and Steve. And quite right too. This wasn't just about Ian Curtis tonight and the worthy causes - this was about absent friends. I smile as the stately In a Lonely Place brings the whole show to a close and some clever punter shouts 'more!'.