Revisit Swans covering Joy Division song ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’
For anyone that sings with a baritone voice and makes music slightly removed from the sunnier side of life, the armchair commentators of the world would say that, naturally, this person must be inspired by the late Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. Whether this be Interpol’s Paul Banks, Matt Berninger of The National, or even Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, if you’re a rock musician and happen to have a deep voice, it’s almost certain that you’ll be compared to Curtis. One prominent figure who felt such a comparison before most was Swans leader Michael Gira.
In the early days, Gira and his band created music much darker than Joy Division produced, with a starkly visceral edge enough to make anyone’s stomach churn. However, as fans of the band know well, Swans gradually embarked on one of the most fascinating metamorphoses’ in popular music, moving into a more expansive area. Whilst the hostile edge remains, it’s now counterbalanced by often transcendental music that is much more profound.
The introduction of Jarboe Devereaux to the band in 1985 was crucial to Swans’ transition from their first no wave-leaning period. Some fans posited that one of this iteration’s best offerings – their 1988 cover of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ – was instrumental in the shift. It followed in the footsteps of the previous year’s exquisite Children of God, the album marking a stark shift in pace for the group.
Swans’ cover of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ arrived as part of the EP of the same name, which also featured two semi-acoustic versions of songs from Children of God. A largely faithful version, the cover features a prominent 12-string guitar and Jarboe’s otherworldly vocals. Ironically, it helped increase their reach far outside their usual listenership. Although this success was moderate, it became a college radio hit and reached number two on the UK Indie Chart.
Despite the reasonably stark distinction in sonics between Joy Division and Swans, some people still sought to draw a comparison between Gira and Curtis, and their cause was only emboldened when the American band produced their cover of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. Gira simply had to be a massive Curtis acolyte, they said.
Despite the cover being a highlight of this chapter of Swans, the comparison to Ian Curtis irked Michael Gira. Asked in 1989 if the song was intended as a tribute to Curtis, the Swans leader categorically responded: “No, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t. A lot of people have romantic feelings about him ‘coz he hung himself and all that, but I just…whenever we choose to do a cover song, it’s nothing to do with the sentimentality attached to the artist that wrote it or anything, it’s just choosing a song from a pool of songs that are there to be used. I don’t really care who wrote it.”
Listen to Swans’ cover of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ below.
