all she asks is strength to hold me

and so it begins, my thirty days of music. theoretically, because i'm not looking ahead or planning song posts in response to the prompts, this will be relatively spontaneous and hopefully honest. though i gotta say, this first post seems like the money shot. ugh. this really does seem a little personal for a first date. but here goes.

day 01 - your favorite song

i've had a few favorite songs in my life, maybe 5 or 6. this one has held strong for 2 years. and the older i get, the better it sounds, and the better it fits.

"ceremony" was one of the last songs ian curtis wrote with joy division before he committed suicide on May 18, 1980. though there are some demos floating around with ian on vocals, my favorite incarnation of the song is by new order, which of course is joy division minus ian curtis, with bernard sumner on vocals. it was new order's first release.

how do i love it? let me count the ways...

there is about a full minute of instrumental before the vocals come in. i love that. you gotta be some kind of confident to pull that off. and when the vocals do come in, the lyrics are vague and cryptic. now, i'm a little bit of a lyrics geek. and it doesn't bother me at all that the song is not instantly accessible. i actually think it's entirely consistent with the song's flavor. it's anxious. restless. at times, tense. incidentally all three of which pretty much define how i feel at this point in my life.

this song makes me feel infinite.

New Order - Ceremony