The role improvisation played in Joy Division’s greatest hits: “He could spot it”
The act of songwriting remains an elusive subject, something that feels impossible to pin down, and yet that people everywhere seem to understand thoroughly. If only there were a secret to writing a great song, if there was a set formula that the likes of John Lennon, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan all followed. If there were, we could all have number one hits, but alas, that remains an exclusive honour to a select few.
The truth is, there is no strict songwriting formula for people to adhere to. Great songs are born out of passion, emotion, talent, skill… and a little bit of luck. Every song that you love will have had a different creative process behind its creation, and it’s this versatility in the creation of music that keeps ideas fresh and exciting.
Who could forget that ‘Yesterday’, a song that many argue is one of the greatest tracks of all time, came to Paul McCartney when he was dreaming? After waking up, he went to his piano to work out the melody, and the rest is history.
It seems that McCartney knew, upon waking up, there was something in the song that he’d dreamt up which he couldn’t ignore. This goes to show that while there may not be a strict process when it comes to songwriting, good songwriters are good at picking out when they should run with an idea. Joy Division’s Ian Curtis is a great example of this, as while he wasn’t known for being the most musical in the band, he knew a good tune when he heard it.
Joy Division’s method of songwriting centred around this ability of Curtis. They would sit around and improvise various pieces of music with no real intention of writing anything. They would play together and push through different phases even if it didn’t sound great. It’s from these periods of improvisation that Ian Curtis would be able to pick out the parts of the jam that could become a fully fledged song. One of the band’s most famous songs, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, was written using that improvised method.
“It was written on the bass and drums, and then Bernard put the keyboard on it,” said the band’s bassist Peter Hook. “I was just playing around with a riff, and Ian spotted the melody. He jumped on it and goes: ‘That’s good, that’s good. Now Steve, put some drums on.’ It was the way we always wrote. Ian didn’t write the music, but he could spot it. We’d jam, he’d sit there and pick out the bits he thought were good.”
The band recognised that the song was good when they finished; however, it wasn’t their favourite Joy Division song. They knew that it was a lot more pop-infused than the music they had written previously; however, they trusted their improvised approach and Curtis’s ear, so they were happy to release the track even though it wasn’t like their usual sound.
“It was a funny song for us because it was quite poppy, a contrast to the rest of the Joy Division stuff,” Hook concluded. “We weren’t that struck with it. The ones that were our favourites were ballsy and angsty, like ‘Shadowplay’ or ‘Transmission’, because you could hide behind the song. ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was fragile and a lot lighter. We knew it was good but not great.”
