Forget Get Smart and Johnny English, if you want to see a good film rent "Control" directed by Anton Corbjin which tells the story of Ian Curtis, the English Jim Morrison, who fronted the seminal post-punk band Joy Division only to die young (don't they all?) in 1980 at the age of 24 when he committed suicide.
Curtis grew up in Macclesfield, England known as the Silk Town courtesy of its textile heritage and only nine miles from my own home town of Congleton and about twenty miles from Manchester and forty from Liverpool (Beatlesville). Curtis grew up in the grey seventies (the film is in black and white but that makes no difference) as did I. There the similarities end - Curtis could write and sing - I can't. He was also possessed by demons that I can only imagine. He went to same grammar school as my Dad - that's definitely all they had in common and was treated in the same hospital that my Mum died in - again all they had in common.Of course, being the movies they create the fictitious Macclesfield District General Hospital as a stand in for Macclesfield Royal Infirmary but I know the truth.
He wrote some great songs, the best of which was Love Will Tear Us Apart which was released only a month before he ended it all. The lyrics reflect the impending break-up of his marriage and eerily foreshadow his suicide. It must be the best song ever to only reach #13 in the UK charts.
Watch the film it's brilliant even though I'm not in it.
Comments