The David Bowie song that Ian Curtis was obsessed with
The 1970s gave rise to punk, a movement centred around aggression, frustration and discontentment, with musicians pushing against the status quo by using abrasive rhythms and no-nonsense lyrics. However, early punk was shortlived, with bands such as Sex Pistols burning out before the decade had come to an end.
Still, the genre’s influence was immeasurable, inspiring countless bands to take a fearless approach to making music – encouraging reckless abandon and expression. The Sex Pistols were responsible for impacting many young budding musicians, influencing them to start their own bands. Their gig at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1976 exposed the small crowd to the potential of punk. Among these eager listeners were The Smiths’ Morrissey, The Fall’s Mark E. Smith and Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley.
The show was also attended by school friends Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner, who bumped into another old pal in the crowd, Ian Curtis. The performance proved to have a momentous impact on them, and Hook and Sumner formed a band the next day. Soon enough, they recruited Curtis as their singer – the early threads of Joy Division were slowly weaving together.
However, the band didn’t always have their now-iconic name, which garnered much controversy due to its association with Nazism. Taken from the novel House of Dolls, the name Joy Division refers to the prostitution wings in concentration camps that many female prisoners were forced into. Before then, the band went by the name Warsaw, although this didn’t last long, as they soon realised that there was another British band called Warsaw Pakt, which they deemed too similar.
The name Warsaw was inspired by David Bowie’s song ‘Warszawa’ from his 1977 album, Low. The musician’s eleventh album was recorded during his Berlin period and saw Bowie work closely with ambient maestro Brian Eno. ‘Warszawa’ is a predominantly instrumental track led by a Mini-Moog synthesiser, with an ambiguous, choral vocal section performed by Bowie. The song was made to create a “bleak atmosphere” in line with Bowie’s experience of visiting the Polish city.
Curtis and his bandmates were hugely inspired by the ominous and oppressive soundscape evoked by Bowie’s song, keeping this in mind as they began making hauntingly dark music themselves. Discussing the band’s decision to use the name Warsaw, Curtis’ widow, Deborah, explained via Touching From A Distance, “At last, they settled on the name Warsaw, taken from ‘Warszawa’ on Bowie’s Low album, which was less typical of the other names being thrown up for contemporary bands.”
While the name Warsaw was only used for a short period of time, it is still closely associated with the band, who took from punk’s abrasiveness and disregard for convention and refined it into something richer, bleaker and more melancholic. Joy Division remain one of the most important post-punk bands of all time, yet their sound might not have been possible without the influence of Bowie’s seminal album, Low.
