How does it feel
To treat me like you do?
When you've laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are?
Thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me, how do I feel?
Tell me now, how do I feel?
Those who came before me
Lived through their vocations
From the past until completion
They'll turn away no more
And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me
Just how I should feel today
I see a ship in the harbour
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn't for your misfortune
I'd be a heavenly person today
And I thought I was mistaken
And I thought I heard you speak
Tell me, how do I feel?
Tell me now, how should I feel?
Now I stand here waiting
I thought I told you to leave me
While I walked down to the beach
Tell me, how does it feel
When your heart grows cold?
To treat me like you do?
When you've laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are?
Thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me, how do I feel?
Tell me now, how do I feel?
Those who came before me
Lived through their vocations
From the past until completion
They'll turn away no more
And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me
Just how I should feel today
I see a ship in the harbour
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn't for your misfortune
I'd be a heavenly person today
And I thought I was mistaken
And I thought I heard you speak
Tell me, how do I feel?
Tell me now, how should I feel?
Now I stand here waiting
I thought I told you to leave me
While I walked down to the beach
Tell me, how does it feel
When your heart grows cold?
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I maintain to this day that the words for Blue Monday came directly from the grave. Ian's last words in a kind of agonizing lament describing his failed relationship with Annik Honoré. She controlled him until the very end, eventually causing him to take his own life and (consequently) sending him to hell.
"But if it wasn't for your misfortune
I'd be a heavenly person today"
RIP IAN
I think that it's about a girlfriend who treat him bad and he wanted to leave her, but that's hard. ("And still find so hard to say what I need to say"). Finally, he leaves her, but he can't realise how does it feel to treat someone who loves you that way.
although the ideas of Ian Curtis seem applicable as well...
but what interests me the most are the interpretations about war.
it isn't something i'd thought about until today when i was reading Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (excellent book - everyone should read it) and that the first page of the book is a cow saying "goodbye blue monday" (i think this is possibly the name of the book within the book so to say but that's unrelated)
later it also mentions that one of the main characters only contact with war was writing "goodbye blue monday" on a bomb going to vietnam (i think?)
so it got me thinking...
is this song any relation to breakfast of champions or have they just been named from the same source?
if they are related maybe the war story holds more truth...
"How does it feel to treat me like you do?" ...How do you think I feel about being an adored 'pop star' - I don't actually like it...
"And still I find it so hard to say what I need to say. "...I don't like singing live
"Those who came before me lived through their vocations" ...The previous lead singer was up the the job, I'm not
"But if it wasn't for your misfortune, I'd be a heavenly person today. "...I the previous lead singer hadn't unfortunately died, I'd be enjoying myself towards the back of the stage.
I really don't know what the ship is in the harbour can be all about, other that there is a vehicle leaving that will take me away from this performance?
I don't think it's about war - the 'machine gun' style drum beat is from Donna Summer's Your Love
For what it's worth, the "ship in the harbour" reference could be Bernard Sumner looking back at the past 3 decades and wondering where he would be had Joy Division's lead singer, Ian Curtis, not committed suicide back in 1980; to him, Joy Division is the ship in the harbour, a ship formerly captained by Curtis but now has been put in Sumner's hands and even though he does an admirable job steering it around in Curtis' absence, he knows it's not his ship, it was Curtis' and to him, while it may never be his ship, he'll do everything he can to steer it right, not just for himself and the other bandmates but for their fans also...
A friend of mine told me he read an article where New Order themselves stated that Blue Monday is about Ian Curtis. Part of the song is about him, part is about his suicide.
Unfortunatly he couldn't remeber the source...he remebers it was a magazine and he thinks it may have been a very old Rolling Stone.
Anyone else ever heard this?
I think the song is deliberately abstracted to some extent- it works just as a general expression of loss and regret. You can put your own experiences into it and interpret it in your own way, like when you read the horoscopes in the paper. I think the song probably refers to Curtis, but the lyrics themselves are vague, little more than a portrayal of loss.
The dominant actor is doing the following:
1) interpellation - telling one who one is
2) suture - filling in blanks in meaning - when one is mistaken, they give words
3) historical continuity/project (teleology) - from past until completion
4) subjectification - telling one how to feel
5) demanding obedience.
It's a very intelligent song - somebody's been studying critical theories of power before they wrote it I reckon. They subscribe to some kind of post-Situationist theory of power, which is being related to war in particular, but also generally to conformity.
It's even clearer with the video as well - it's saying that actual warfare and state brutality are linked to video games and TV - there's an image flashes up which has soldiers causing an explosion then it says "1000 point bonus". Basically we come to desire power by being told who we are and taught how to feel, through means such as the media, computer games, consumerism etc. (And remember this is a band who gave themselves two Nazi-inspired names in a row, and are associated with Factory Records who are pretty explicitly post-situ).
"Heavenly person" has a double meaning - dead, or good/innocent. It has the dual overtones of, without you I'd be dead, and without you I wouldn't be guilty (of war crimes, abuse, whatever).
Power is portrayed as cold, alienating and guilt-inducing... its heart is cold, it tells us what to feel but leaves us finding it hard to say what the official script makes us say, and it stops us being "heavenly".
I agree about the video-games / brutality analysis. I get a similar vibe from "Everything's Gone Green" - another favorite song by this great band.
Your post is interesting.
You might like the epitaph I penned for Gilles D. at my blog: connecthook.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/deleuzional/