Joy Division releases "Love Will Tear Us Apart", the song of the year

Joy Division : Love Will Tear Us Apart

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On June 27, 1980 Joy Division released "Love Will Tear Us Apart". It entered the UK charts at #45 on the 29th. Released a month after Ian Curtis's suicide, this is the most memorable and celebrated single of 1980. It is also the saddest. A breakup song with lyrics full of misery (Why is the bedroom so cold?/ Turned away on your side) and a beat that welcomes everyone to the dance floor. 

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" was named NME Single of the Year in 1980, and was listed as the best single of all time by NME in 2002. Rolling Stone critics named it the best single of the year ands The Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critic's Poll ranked the single #2 behind Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks".

Recording the song was a marathon, in the words of bassist Peter Hook. Drummer Stephen Morris recalls getting awakened at 4 AM by producer Martin Hannett to come back into the studio to play snare drum. 

Hook says Hannett 

kept remixing it and must have done it ten to fifteen times; then (Factory Records owner )Tony Wilson pulled the plug on him because it was costing so much money. Martin was never happy with it and kept searching , constantly , for the great mix He tried different engineers but could never get the definitive mix. Funnily enough, I now don't like the mix he eventually chose for the single, I like the one that's got a dead-loud guitar over-dub on it, a radio mix.

Its title etched on Curtis' gravestone, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" can't be separated from its circumstances. Curtis is witnessing the end of his marriage, suffering an increasing number of epileptic fits, and is losing his interest in life.  In the Spin Alternative Record Guide, Evelyn McDonnell writes "this pop song seemed to hurl its burden of prophetic tragic doom heavenward."