Let's Dance to Joy Division

Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Manchester. They consisted of Ian Curtis Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris.
Ian Curtis, the lead singer, had depression and while also struggling with epilepsy. This meant that live performances were difficult, as he often had seizures on stage leaving him feeling ashamed, despite audiences sometimes thinking it was part of the performance. In spite of the increasing ill health of Curtis, but the band filmed a promotional video for the forthcoming "Love Will Tear Us Apart" single that month. The night before the bands first American Tour in May 1980, Curtis committed suicide, by hanging himself in his kitchen. Joy Division's album was released posthumously and the single 'Love Will Tear us Apart' became one of their highest charting release.



…This song is referenced in ‘The Wombats’ song ‘Let’s dance to joy division’, as towards the end of the song they sing ‘so let the love tear us apart’.

The Wombats are an Indie band from Liverpool. They comprise of Matthew Murphy and Dan Haggis and Tord Overland-Knudsen. The band met in 2003 at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. In 2006, the band released their debut album "Girls, Boys, and Marsupials" which was only available in Japan. But by 2007 they had released an album in the UK The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, with singles including "Backfire at the Disco" and "Moving To New York".



When listening to their song ‘Let’s dance to Joy Division’ I realised that although it seems upbeat and jolly, when actually listening to the lyrics it is quite sad because they are talking about dancing happily but to a song sung by a man who was very depressed and ashamed. The key word is IRONY (‘Let’s celebrate the irony), and so that’s what I based my pitch around…

My idea for ‘The Wombats’ music video is that it begins with the band walking up to a house and going inside where there is a house party going on. As the music is happy and upbeat I would want the band, and everyone at the house party to be wearing bright colours such as red, blue and yellow – and T-shirts with happy slogans or smiley faces on. However as the band walk round the house people should be having a really bad time; ie- being sick, having big fights, crying – yet smiling at the band as they go by; therefore getting in the ironic element. As this is going on this should be cross cut with shots of the band playing in the same room as Joy Division were in their video for ‘Love will tear us apart’ (this bit should be shot in the dull colours of their music video too). When the song goes quiet 2/3 of the way through everything should go dark at the house party and the wombats should be moving through the crowd of people in silhouette – then when the music starts up again everyone from the house party should be in the joy division style room that the band were playing in (in the cross cutting) and the colours should be brighter and everyone dances to the music until the end.