Love Will Tear Us Apart

Its lyrics were inspired by lead singer Ian Curtis's marital problems and struggles with epilepsy. The single was released the month after his suicide.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart"
7" cover
Single by Joy Division
B-side	"These Days"
Released	June 1980 (1980-06)
Recorded	March 1980
Studio	Strawberry, Stockport
Genre	Post-punk new wave
Length	3:18
Label	Factory
Songwriter(s)	Ian Curtis Peter Hook Stephen Morris Bernard Sumner
Producer(s)	Martin Hannett Joy Division
Joy Division British singles and EPs singles chronology
"Komakino" (1980) "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (1980) "Atmosphere" (1980)
Alternative cover
12" cover
Music video
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" on YouTube

The song was certified double platinum in the UK, selling and streaming over 1,200,000 units, and has an ongoing legacy as a defining song of the era. In 2002, NME named "Love Will Tear Us Apart" as the greatest single of all time, while Rolling Stone named it one of the 500 greatest songs ever in 2004, 2010, and 2021.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" was written about Ian Curtis' troubled relationship with his wife, Deborah Woodruff, whom he married in August 1975. Additionally, it deals with his own struggles with epilepsy, which he was diagnosed with in 1979, and the overwhelming stress of holding down a day job and his growing career as a singer.

At a Joy Division gig in October 1979, Curtis met Belgian journalist and music promoter Annik Honoré and the two began a relationship, which caused further distress between Curtis and Woodruff.

Speaking about her relationship with Curtis in a 2010 interview with Belgian magazine supplement Focus, Honoré said:

It was a completely pure and platonic relationship, very childish, very chaste… I did not have a sexual relationship with Ian. He was on medication, which rendered it a nonphysical relationship. I am so fed up that people question my word or his. People can say whatever they want, but I am the only person to have his letters… One of his letters says that the relationship with his wife Deborah had already finished prior to us meeting each other.

The title to the song can read like an ironic response to "Love Will Keep Us Together", a song whose version by Captain & Tennille was a hit in 1975. According to record producer Warren Huart, its intro was influenced directly by the Neu! song "Hero".

Joy Division first recorded "Love Will Tear Us Apart" at Pennine Studios, Oldham, on 8 January 1980, along with the B-side, "These Days". This version was similar to the version the band played live. However, singer Ian Curtis and producer Martin Hannett disliked the results and the band reconvened in March at Strawberry Studios, Stockport (where the Neil Sedaka song "Love Will Keep Us Together" had been recorded in 1973) to re-record it. Each instrument was recorded separately. Drummer Stephen Morris recalled:

Martin Hannett played one of his mind games when we were recording it – it sounds like he was a tyrant, but he wasn't, he was nice. We had this one battle where it was nearly midnight and I said, "Is it all right if I go home, Martin – it's been a long day?" And he said [whispers], "OK ... you go home". So I went back to the flat. Just got to sleep and the phone rings. "Martin wants you to come back and do the snare drum". At four in the morning! I said, "What's wrong with the snare drum!?" So every time I hear "Love Will Tear Us Apart", I grit my teeth and remember myself shouting down the phone, "YOU BASTARD!" ... I can feel the anger in it even now. It's a great song and it's a great production, but I do get anguished every time I hear it.

The guitar on the recording, a 12-string Eko, was played by Bernard Sumner. While Curtis generally did not play guitar, to perform the song live, the band taught him how to strum a D major chord. Sumner said:

Ian didn't really want to play guitar, but for some reason we wanted him to play it. I can't remember the reason now ... We showed him how to play D and we wrote a song. I wonder if that's why we wrote "Love Will Tear Us Apart", you could drone a D through it. I think he played it live because I was playing keyboards.

Curtis' singing style on the later version of the song is an imitation of Frank Sinatra, after Factory Records owner Tony Wilson had given him a record of the singer to use as a model. As Hannett felt this was a special song, he kept remixing it, even as many as 15 times.

While Joy Division were recording, U2 were in the studio to see Hannett about producing their single "11 O'Clock Tick Tock". U2 singer Bono said of the encounter:

Talking to Ian Curtis is ... or was a strange experience because he's very warm ... he talked—it was like two people inside of him—he talked very light, and he talked very well-mannered, and very polite. But when he got behind the microphone he really surged forth; there was another energy. It seemed like he was just two people and, you know, "Love Will Tear Us Apart", it was like [when] that record was released ... it was like, as if, there were the personalities, separate; there they were, torn apart.

It was first recorded for a John Peel session in November 1979, then re-recorded in January 1980 and March 1980. It is the latter version that appears on the 1988 Substance album. The January 1980 version, which has become known as the "Pennine version", originally appeared as one of the single's B-sides.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" became Joy Division's first chart hit, reaching number 13 in the UK Singles Chart. The following month, the single topped the UK Indie Chart. The song also peaked at number 42 on the Billboard disco chart in October 1980. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" also reached number 1 in New Zealand in June 1981.

The single was re-released in 1983 and reached number 19 on the UK charts and number 3 in New Zealand during March 1984. In 1985, the 7" single was released in Poland by Tonpress in different sleeve under licence from Factory and sold over 20,000 copies. In November 1988, it made one more Top 40 appearance in New Zealand, peaking at number 39.

According to Curtis's wife Deborah, to create the single cover photo, which was made by Trevor Key, the song title was etched upon a sheet of metal; this was aged with acid and exposed to the weather to create the appearance of a stone slab. For the 12" version of the single, a photograph of a grieving angel on the Ribaudo family tomb in Genoa's Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno (sculpted by Onorato Toso c. 1910) was used. The photograph was taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff in 1978.

The video was shot by the band themselves on 25 April 1980 as they rehearsed the song at T. J. Davidson's studio, in Knott Mill, Manchester city centre, where the band had previously rehearsed during the early days of their career. At the start of the video, the door that opens and shuts is carved with Ian Curtis' name; reportedly this was the beginning of an abusive message (the rest later erased) carved into the door.

Due to poor production, the video's colour is 'browned out' at some points. Also, as the track recorded during the recording of the video was poor, it was replaced with the single-edit recording of the song by the band's record company in Australia, leading to problems with the synchronisation of music and video. This edited version of the music video would later become the official version due to the improvement of sound quality. The audio issue would be fixed in the 1995 remaster.

This was the only promotional video the band ever produced as Ian Curtis hanged himself three weeks after the video was recorded.

 

"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.

In May 2007, NME placed it at number 19 in its list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever, one place ahead of another Joy Division song, "Transmission". The song is also listed as being one of the 5 best indie songs of all time in the "All Time Indie Top 50".

In 2004, the song was listed by Rolling Stone magazine at number 179 in its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2011, the song was listed at number 181. In the 2021 update of the list, it had risen to 41.

The song reached number 1 in the inaugural Triple J Hottest 100 music poll of 1989 and again in 1990. When being interviewed for New Order Story, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys stated that "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was his favourite pop song of all time. At Christmas 2011, listeners of Dublin's Phantom FM voted "Love Will Tear Us Apart" as their favourite song of all time. Furthermore, in 2012, in celebration of the NME's 60th anniversary, a list of the 100 Greatest Songs of NME's Lifetime was compiled, and the list was topped by "Love Will Tear Us Apart". Serbian rock musician, journalist and writer Dejan Cukić wrote about "Love Will Tear Us Apart" as one of the 45 songs that changed history of popular music in his 2007 book 45 obrtaja: Priče o pesmama. In 2015, the online magazine Pitchfork ranked "Love Will Tear Us Apart" seventh on its list of the "200 best songs of the 1980s".

Following Curtis's suicide, his wife Deborah had the phrase "Love Will Tear Us Apart" inscribed on his memorial stone.

In June 2013, Mighty Box Games released Will Love Tear Us Apart?, a browser-based video game that adapts every verse of the song into a level.

The song made a strong impression on songwriter and former Graduate frontman Roland Orzabal and inspired him to write more introspective and personal songs that would appear on Tears for Fears 1983 debut album The Hurting.