Saturday 25 January 2014

'Temptation' - New Order (1982)


“Up, down, turn around,
Please don’t let me hit the ground. 
Tonight I think I’ll walk alone,
I’ll find my soul as I go home.”

Songs about walking home alone. Those are my favourite songs. (He says, with the right to change his mind at any time, so don’t hold me to it.) See also The Smiths’ ‘Rusholme Ruffians’ (“Though I walk home alone, my faith in love is still devout”) and The Wedding Present’s ‘My Favourite Dress’ (“A long walk home in the pouring rain, I fell asleep when you never came”).

Can’t get enough of them. 'Now That’s What I Call Some Good Songs About Walking Home Alone.’ I’d buy that album. (Are you listening record companies?)  

Of course, this is because I’ve spent far too much time traipsing around on my lonesome. Let’s just say it’s through choice and there’s a certain romanticism to it. (Except it’s not always. And for ‘romanticism’ read ‘bitter sting of rejection’.)

New Order’s ‘Temptation’ remains one of the most perfect songs to me. And marries my favourite theme of long walks home alone, with my second favourite theme of not being able to remember the colour of people’s eyes (“Oh, you’ve got green eyes; oh, you’ve got blue eyes; oh, you’ve got grey eyes”). It’s another of those songs that seems to capture one Saturday evening in March 1989 quite perfectly. The answer was she had grey eyes. Well, kind of more silver, but let’s not ruin my memory of the song.

Classic enigmatic Peter Saville cover.
With the band's name nowhere to be found. 

P.S. If you like your indie frontmen in white shorts, you'll love this performance from the archives...


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