My favourite song to play live is 'Temptation'. It's one of New Order's oldest songs, dating back to 1981, yet over the years it's evolved and developed ontsage into the stomping, thunderous nine-minute behemoth we play today as the climax of our live set.
We recorded it in London at a studio near the Post Office Tower on a day when it was snowing heavily. While I was recording the vocal Rob [Gretton] snuck into the studio and stuck a snowball down the back of my shirt. You can hear that on the long version of the song: all the whooping and shouting is the result of Rob's handful of snow going down my back, which is a wonderful memory to hear on the record but, even so, I think 'Temptation' is a much more powerful live song than it could ever be in the studio. It's neither our most famous song nor our most commercially successful, yet it draws people in and has become the pinnacle of the entire set. There's something about the repetition and the motion it involves, the simplicity of the structure and the words that make 'Temptation' a very spiritual song for me. I don't think I can explain why, there's just a tangible sense when I'm singing it that makes it feel to me like a prayer.
(bernard sumner, from chapter and verse [new order, joy division and me])
04.26.18
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7 comments:
my immediate reaction to reading this is to find the music and listen to it. recognition sparks--i've heard this before, covered on the trainspotting soundtrack. i like learning new things (about anything, though music is always a delight) and am thrilled to listen to the original. thanks!
it's not a cover - that's bernard & co in TRAINSPOTTING (there are two different "temptation"s in it)! that was a very solid soundtrack. <3
ah! you know your stuff, and i am much obliged. i have a special place in my heart for that and the lost highway soundtrack, which either came out around the same time or which i discovered nearly simultaneously.
on my next visit, i’d love to spend a while talking about and listening to some of the music that you love.
correction: i only like a handful of stuff on lost highway: bowie, nin, and smashing pumpkins. alas! memory is so transient.
paul and i were pretty fond of the rammstein track from LOST HIGHWAY back in the day. this might say more about college than it does about either us or rammstein.
hahahaha! (was it rammstein by rammstein, or heirate mich?)
rammstein.
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