The Sound Of Music

This is Ian Curtis' suicide note.

this is a great example of a song with very direct lyrics, that works well. sometimes songwriters keep things purposefully vague or flowery. this one is just so straightforward, no subtext needed. and as for the last lines, the irony here is the protagonist is acutely aware of how love of life can make one feel 'higher' but he himself is unable to get there. Thus he suffers doubly.

love the guitar on this song, all rhythm and no melody, sounds like an industrial grinder!

I always thought it was funny that someone like Ian Curtis (knowing what later became of him) could write a song where the chorus is "love of life makes you feel higher." Then again, in the line before he says "I can't see life getting higher" which makes me think he has no more love for life. Hmm.

I must say that

I'll walk you through the heartbreaks Show you all the out-takes I can't see it getting higher Systematically degraded Emotionally a scapegoat I can't see it getting better

is one of the most poetic expressions of angst ever committed to record.

Yeah drmanhattan, it does seem weird that he would write "Love of life makes you feel higher," but i think it's an intentional use of irony. It's like at the end of "Colony" where he says, "Dear God in his wisdom took you by the hand/God in his wisdom made you understand" and you can tell by his tone of voice that he means the exact opposite.

I think that the "Love life etc" is sort of like what Billy Corgan does with his lyrics, that being irony.

I think that if you take this and New Dawn Fades as one piece (they were written around the same time, leading up to his death), then yes, it most definitely forms a suicide note. I actually think that this is probably the saddest of all Ian Curtis' songs, even though the music is actually quite upbeat (and what's up with that "BRRRRWOOOOOOOO!" at the beginning???), which of course adds a whole 'nother dimension of irony to it.

It's also somewhat representive of the fact that if you can hide your soul-crushing, all-consuming depression under a veneer of happiness, you can leave a whole ton of people in the wake of your ultimate actions saying "I had no idea."