Ceremony ; primarily JD or NO

[ As I've said before, if people hear the opening bassline of Ceremony and think 'Oooh, Joy Division!' then I'm truly amazed. Perhaps you were the lucky ones who had a boot of the Brum Uni show back in 1980 then were dismayed that those upstarts released it eight months later without Ian. But you weren't, were you? I'd bet ten to the dozen that the first time you heard this song was a New Order version. And, if not, you probably came to this band quite late or just had your head stuck in the sand when New Order's version was released.

Does the cold chill your brain in these icy winter months? Dont worry Ill get my missus to knock you up a knitted hood for your anorak or would you prefer a crocheted one!

Originally posted by zico Then why include both on Retro if they were Joy Division songs?Both are I suppose, transitional songs between JD and NO and are unique in that respect but like Al says, if you hear Ceremony at a gig or on the radio you immediately think of New Order.That answers is surely?

Barney on the subject of Ceremony: "Ian tried to commit suicide once before he killed himself. He took an overdose, and went to a hospital. When he came out we did two concerts and we wrote two songs, which were In A Lonely Place and Ceremony..." "Those songs were our inheritance from Ian and they got us going again."

• Taken from the Retro booklet

Also, in the song credits on Retro: "In A Lonely Place Written by Joy Division... Published by Fractured Music/Zomba Music..." "Ceremony Written by Joy Division... Published by Fractured Music/Zomba Music..."

Now, every other song on the box set says that it's published by Warner Chappell Music Ltd.

On the Heart and Soul box set, if you look on the CDs themselves, you'll notice that it says: "Published by Zomba Music/Fractured Music"

And last, you have the two "Fractured Music Archive" live albums by Joy Division.

It seems to me that Fractured/Zomba Music owns the publishing rights for every Joy Division song, and Warner Chappell Music owns the publishing rights for every New Order song.

Now put all the peices together and here's the answer: Ceremony and In A Lonely Place are Joy Division songs. THE END.

It's actually a cover of a little-known Barry White song, so yer all wrong ;)

& people wanted to close this thread???

this is all because people are looking at the question in different ways imho.

to me when i think of it i think of it as a new order song, dont think about which incarnation of the band wrote it. hang on - hasn't that been said before?

And who gives a shit!!

They are performed by new order and sung by Barney so to all intent and purpose they are NOW NewOrder songs.

Now stop bickering and just bloody enjoy them!! ;)

Originally posted by Al Jarvis > Originally posted by DoN.> They are performed by new order and sung by Barney so to all intent and purpose they are NOW NewOrder songs.

You just chuck that cat amongst those pigeons, Mr Brasco!

You now saying that LWTUA and Atmosphere are New Order songs too?

I'd beg to differ! ;)

I was being much more literal than was probably obvious Jarvo, i meant NewOrder have inherited them, adopted them if you like, given them a new lease of life or lick of paint!

They may have been crafted when the band was name JoyDivision but as they are now being performed and recreated under the guise of NewOrder.

So believe it or not when they perform these songs they dont change their name to JoyDivision they remain NewOrder ;)

I guess it depends on how you define ownership really!!

where can one get hold of this ceremony song anyway?

Originally posted by Al Jarvis > Originally posted by comEar> > > > Originally posted by John Sweeney> > > > > > > Originally posted by frank smarra> > > I heard hooky once say that Ceremony to him defined the End of joy division not the Beggining of New Order> > >

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

ditto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, fantastic, we even now have people supposedly para-phrasing Hooky in attempts to bolster their arguments.

Having a chat in the pub with him one day, were we?

As I've said before, if people hear the opening bassline of Ceremony and think 'Oooh, Joy Division!' then I'm truly amazed. Perhaps you were the lucky ones who had a boot of the Brum Uni show back in 1980 then were dismayed that those upstarts released it eight months later without Ian. But you weren't, were you? I'd bet ten to the dozen that the first time you heard this song was a New Order version. And, if not, you probably came to this band quite late or just had your head stuck in the sand when New Order's version was released.

actually it was in an interview might have been from the brixton video but im not sure

Oh... when will death visit us all? Sometimes I think not soon enough. Ceremony was written by JD, melody and words. Therefore JD should get the credit for the creation of the song. NO never changed the rythym, words, melody or anything from the way it was originally created. So, NO plays it, JD wrote it... if it takes a yank to see the OBVIOUS, then so be it. If NO changed the melody and rythym of the song, then it would be theirs, but they didn't. It would be like some band taking "Turn The Heater On" and playing it for the next 20 years calling it their song. NO wrote it both lyric and melody, so whether some band makes it their song by playing it a bazillion times over twenty years is a moot point. The song is made by the creator, not the band who covers it. NO essentially is covering a JD song that was written too late for them to cement it under their name... it's not like that wouldn't have happened if Ian didn't die. Stop being so blind and give Ian the credit he deserves for his hand in writing the songs. NO was the instrument used to present the song to the world. Think of JD as the manufacturer and NO as FedEx. You need both to get the product out to the world, but they both should only get the credit for their part in the whole thing.

Well, I know my last post seemed a little blunt, but I had to throw in my two cents.

Look at it this way, if you view JD and NO as being the same band because it has the same members minus Mr. Curtis, then you've done yourself a favor. To me, it's all part of the same history.

To those who think they are two seperate bands, the only answer is that the band, under the name Joy Division, own the copyrights for the two songs, and New Order just did a cover of it.

And to the person who stated that next week I'll probably listen to The Velvet Underground and think they are the greatest band in the world... well, been there, done that about two years ago. I've been working on Lou Reed solo stuff now. JD/NO are still and will be the greatest to me.

Originally posted by Wolfmann It would be like some band taking "Turn The Heater On" and playing it for the next 20 years calling it their song. NO wrote it both lyric and melody, so whether some band makes it their song by playing it a bazillion times over twenty years is a moot point. The song is made by the creator, not the band who covers it. .

Ahem, that was a really bad example to prove your point Stephen.

Originally posted by zico Then why include both on Retro if they were Joy Division songs?Both are I suppose, transitional songs between JD and NO and are unique in that respect but like Al says, if you hear Ceremony at a gig or on the radio you immediately think of New Order.That answers is surely?btw - as an aside, is there much difference between the versions of Ceremony on 7" and 12"?Have got a copy of the 7" but not sure if I've heard the 12" before.

To my ears the original 7" and 12" (green sleeve) versions of "Ceremony" are identical. the 12" (cream and blue sleeve) version, released on "Substance" and "Retro" is a re-recording and is much softer in tone (and in my opinion not a patch on the first.) The 7" version of "In A Lonely Place" is a four and a half minute edit of the 12" (green sleeve) version which is about 6 min 15 sec long. The 12" cream sleeve version of IALP is also over 6 min in length but contains additional effects not on the first release, this version was on "Substance" and "Retro" as well.

Al wrote: "As I've said before, if people hear the opening bassline of Ceremony and think 'Oooh, Joy Division!' then I'm truly amazed."

It doesn't take much to amaze you then man. That song was created by JD, and it sounds like them, not New Order. That's why it (along with IALP) stands out so clearly from everything else NO plays, even in the early days.

It's a pretty simple song, so we can easily make some comparisons.

vocals - the lyrics are unmistakeably Ian's, as is the vocal melody, which resembles the vocal part from Atmosphere

drums - similar to Transmission, it is a typical contribution from Steve that many drummers would have a hard time duplicating and certainly is much more complicated and well put together than anything that could have come from any of the other members of the group

bass - totally in the JD style and sound, using precisely the same droning string moving up and down a fourth with another lick on top as you will find in She's Lost Control and Twenty Four Hours

guitar - this part is a little harder to nail down since it is about as similar to the material on Movement as it is to any of the mature JD songs, but the sound of Barney rocking out on a couple of thick, simple chords letting his Vox do what it does best seems more JD to me; the guitar melody also leans to the JD side to me, it reminds me of Disorder and the whole song is sort of like an up tempo Autosuggestion.

The arrangement developed and used by JD when they did the song is the same one New Order uses today, except for some lyrics being misplaced, and Hooky slightly changing the bass melody on the bridge (forever... watching love grow...) to go up to his high note instead of down to the open string like he did with JD and some early NO versions - I consider both of those differences to be mistakes or laziness, not improvements by any means.

"Perhaps you were the lucky ones who had a boot of the Brum Uni show back in 1980 then were dismayed that those upstarts released it eight months later without Ian. But you weren't, were you? I'd bet ten to the dozen that the first time you heard this song was a New Order version."

In my case you'd lose the bet, as I first heard the song on Still. I had heard some New Order at that point but it was JD that really drew me in, I had not yet checked out any earlier NO than what was current at that time (mid 80s).

But none of this really matters, does it ? When or under what circumstances we first heard the song, or how many times we like it, which 'band' we like better, how well we like them, etc. That's all after the fact trivia that has nothing to do with the making of the song, which obviously happened before any of us heard it.

I have a big problem with revisionist, retroactive assignment of authorship without the consent of the actual creators of any kind of art by people who weren't involved. That whole notion stinks and reminds me of the lame rationalizations people go through to justify theft of intellectual property (napster, etc). As a person who creates things and doesn't often see any cash as a result of it, this hits home to me. Anybody that thinks this thread is out of hand is welcome to browse the archives of the boards at prosoundweb.com, we had a battle royal on that topic a while back that has at least 4 times the responses as this one, with many of them lengthy essays (I'm guilty of that). I mean, it's great to be a loyal fan and to defend what you think is the honor of 'your group' or something, but to whatever extent the original question was about authorship, as opposed to the vague notion of who a song is associated with among music listeners, there is simply no question. There's a certain kind of 'ownership' of a song that will always belong to those who created it, regardless of how well or how many times or how much better known someone else's performance is.

Originally posted by teleharmonium I have a big problem

Not wrong there ;)

Teleharmoniun. Not gonna quote you for sake of space. Many bands have lost a member or even several members and carried on under the same name. So I find your whole approach a bit strange when you start describing Morris' drum sound and Hook's bass sound as Joy Division sounding. What's the difference? They chose to carry on under a different name and release a couple of tracks THEY had already written. The fact that there are similarities with their previous recorded output is hardly unusual. Do you actually think they have stolen the song from Curtis?

I heard Ceremony on the radio in 1981, the New Order version, a friend played the Still album to me the same year. From then on I considered it to be a Joy Division song. It didn`t stop me loving it any less and I preferred the New Order version. So when I hear it now I think New Order singing a Joy Division song. :D

Al, I've never been much of a radio listener, but as I said I had heard other NO tracks (not Ceremony) first, and then JD. The ones you would be most likely to come across around 84-87 were PK, Temptation, Blue Monday, etc., but not Ceremony. I don't think I've ever heard Ceremony by New Order played on the radio, and there isn't a promo video for it. I don't think very many people in the US were exposed to it other than serious fans or music geeks until Substance came out, and even then it seemed to be a song that gets skipped over a lot.

Hank W. wrote "So I find your whole approach a bit strange when you start describing Morris' drum sound and Hook's bass sound as Joy Division sounding. What's the difference? They chose to carry on under a different name and release a couple of tracks THEY had already written. The fact that there are similarities with their previous recorded output is hardly unusual."

We are discussing whether the song is a "JD song" or a "NO song" so it makes sense to go into the provenance of it and look at how it was made, how it relates to other material of theirs and so forth. You're not really serious when you ask 'what's the difference', are you ? You literally don't make any distinction between the 2 bands ? Despite their connection they sound very different from one another, a brief transition period aside; NO has obviously gone into other areas and sounds and has a different audience than JD did, albeit with some overlap. I can tell the difference between the 2 bands instantly if a recording is played, you probably can too, I expect.

"Do you actually think they have stolen the song from Curtis?"

No, of course not, don't try to put words in my mouth. I'm saying he, Barney, Steve and Hooky created that song (to say "wrote" really isn't enough and minimizes the other members' contributions to the arrangement). The point is that if you want to say it's a "New Order Song (c)(P)" because it is included in their setlist often and an important part of their repertoire and history, fine, but you can't say NO created it, because they didn't and everybody knows it, NO as such couldn't write a song like that to save their lives; and as far as I'm concerned you can't say NO did it "definitively" or "better" because they didn't do that either.

Originally posted by Al Jarvis > Originally posted by teleharmonium> Al, I've never been much of a radio listener, but as I said I had heard other NO tracks (not Ceremony) first

Can't say I'm *that* surprised, having seen New Order in America meself, but over here everything they did went top 40, until Perfect Kiss, so you couldn't really avoid them, especially if you were a regular reader of the music press, which all of us seem to have gone through at some stage in life. Marry that with the death of Curtis, and that created a lot of curiosity about the band. They might be solely seen as a cult band Stateside, but over they're fairly mainstream, with just a tinge of 'cult' about them.

I made a very closely related comment in the "Stephen, Barney, Hooky.....SELLOUTS??? " thread but i'd go as far to say that even the "cult" tinge seems to be gradually evaporating over time

I think the ambiguity of the word "primarily" has got everyones knickers in a twist!!

Al wrote "You're twisting this thread again, aren't you? No one said New Order created Ceremony."

I don't think I'm twisting this thread any more than it has already been, and if you look on the previous posts you'll see IIRC Benny trying to say that the song was really written by Barney with 'random' words by Ian, which I guess is tatamount to saying NO wrote it and basically minimizing or denying Ian's involvement.

You're the one who keeps trying to twist it into being about the personalities or qualifications of those that don't agree with you. I'd suggest sticking to the subject of whether it is "primarily" a "new order song" or a "joy division song" but in your case I don't think you have anything to support your view other than the fact that you really, really think it is a NO song and consider yourself an authority on the subject.