Rants and Chants

A few months ago, I rented the DVD of 24 Hour Party People, which tells the story of Tony Wilson, Joy Division, Factory Records, Madchester, and The Hacienda in Manchester. Much of the first half of the film covers Wilson’s discovery of Joy Division and their early recordings for Factory Records, up to lead singer Ian Curtis’ suicide. Set against the backdrop of post-punk music, their sound was dark, ominous, introspective, eerie, somber, and ethereal.

Mind you, before I saw 24 Hour Party People, the only Joy Division song I had heard was “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” I liked the song, but didn’t know enough of their oeuvre to prompt me to buy a CD or otherwise seek out more. The movie, changed that. I was so impressed with “Transmission,” “Atmosphere,” “Digital,” and “She’s Lost Control” that I added a couple of Joy Division CDs to my wish list.

Tonight I had to return some DVDs to my local library, a couple of miles from my house. While I was there, I remembered they have a CD collection, so I decided to look for some Joy Division there. I found their second, posthumous album, Closer, and checked it out just before the library closed at 9:00 p.m.

Out in the car, I put in the disc and turned it up. About a quarter of a mile from the library, I felt a frisson ripple through me. The first track, “Atrocity Exhibition,” is about an insane asylum as entertainment and that then as metaphor for the human condition. It has a prominent drum and bass line, as well as injections of rattling, scratching noises. The rhythm is relentless, the imagery disturbing, and there is a constant invitation, “This is the way, step inside…”

My shudder of creepy piloerection, however, came from more than the song. It was the collusion of the song and the drive. My home is a left and a right and a left and a right and a left and a right expedition ending at a tree-circled cul-de-sac. Under heavy cloud cover, there was no moonlight. My headlights were the only light on winding, hilly, and heavily wooded suburban streets. Strong, gusty wind was ripping leaves from the trees, showering them down in shifting jerks and often driving them laterally across the road in front of me, as if they were running from some force approaching from the west. The car swayed with the road and with the wind. Then, in dark homage to American Beauty, I saw a plastic bag swirling and rolling in fits around a front lawn, like some trash-embodied ghost come early for Samhainn. And all the while, Ian Curtis invited me. “This is the way, step inside…”