‘Colony’: Stephen Morris names his favourite Joy Division song
Right from the beginning, even when they were in Warsaw, it was evident that Joy Division had more on offer than most of the punk scene that birthed them. Fusing a genuinely artistic nature and the influence of Manchester’s cold destitution, this created a profound musical aesthetic, meaning it didn’t take long for the group to catch listeners’ imaginations and go on to be era-defining.
One way that they stood out from the crowd was the pulp of frontman Ian Curtis’ lyrics. A lifelong lover of rock’s greatest wordsmiths, Curtis also had a propensity to imbue his work with his many literary influences, with J.G. Ballard and Nikolai Gogol cropping up at different points. A believer in songs having real meaning, this belief is another reason their efforts resonated so powerfully with their generation.
“Words meant such a lot to Ian,” Deborah Curtis, his widow, once told The Guardian. “If he put a record on, we’d have to listen to absolutely everything. He used to talk about what the lyrics meant and the story behind them. He didn’t like songs that didn’t mean anything.”
One famous wordsmith who influenced Joy Division and Ian Curtis was the influential novelist Franz Kafka. Esteemed for his works, The Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle, the Czech writer made such an impact that one of his lesser-known works would inspire a later piece by the Manchester band. The track in question is ‘Colony’, from 1980’s second and final album, Closer.
As fans of Joy Division will be aware, the title ‘Colony’ directly references Franz Kafka’s 1914 short story, In the Penal Colony. Offering appropriately sinister material for Curtis and Joy Division, it is set in an unnamed penal colony. The tale describes the last use of a torture and execution machine that carves the prisoner’s sentence onto their skin as they slowly die. As the narrative unfolds, the reader learns more about the origins and justifications of the mystery device.
‘Colony’ isn’t significant just for the influence of Franz Kafka. It also happens to be Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris’ favourite cut by them. He explained that the song differed from their earlier material, as it was the quartet attempting to make “unsettling” music. He also described Curtis’ lyrics as “absolutely fantastic”.
Morris explained to GQ in 2020: “‘Colony’ is probably my favourite Joy Division song. Again, it’s got a literary reference to Kafka, which Ian was reading, and I read a fair bit as well. Whereas all the early songs were punky, thrashy things, we were trying to do stuff that was a bit unsettling. I really thought Ian’s lyrics on that one were absolutely fantastic. He’d had it for a while, so it was an easy one to do. There was no messing about, with Martin doing the drums or anything. It was pretty much done more or less live because we all knew exactly how it went.”
Listen to ‘Colony’ below.
