Galaxie 500 :: Ceremony
It’s dark territory trying to unpack the kernel of this song. Maybe it’s the weird tenor in Dean Wareham’s voice, or the calamity of the lyrics and drums colliding in strange simpatico. Or maybe because it feels like a farewell. The song is asking you to explore the morose portions of yourself, or at least acknowledge them.
When I stumbled upon Galaxie 500 it was like finding out you’re adopted, but in a good way. Like, things start to make sense. The weird fiction that you are living in finally has this ‘thing’ to make it all palatable. Finally, there is something that matches the tone of who you are.
Someone at the restaurant I worked at accidentally put On Fire in my CD case, and when I got home and put the mysterious album into my discman (it was the 90s) I felt as though someone had boiled my taste to an essence. As if something like that could be taken beyond my body, beyond the privacy of my head.
TRUE STORY: All the songs on that album are great. When Will You Come Home is so sad, desperate and honest, and is a perfect example of how Wareham’s voice straddles the line of being unbearable, but for some cosmic reason it works. The other covers Isn’t It A Pity and Victory Garden are equally as successful in re-imagining a tune. And Strange captures a mania sometimes inexpressible.
Bold and lyrical, surrender and regret, discovery and loss, Ceremony accrues an enormous amount of substance by the sparse yet loaded lyrics. It gets uncomplicated towards then end, less informative, more cryptic, embedded with a sense of failure. I like to listen to this song, and imagine a world where psychic musicians play a score created just for you…
Ceremony (8.2MB MP3)
Galaxie 500 (wikipedia)
(note — song originally written by Joy Division, first recorded by New Order)
vj said on wednesday, june 25th, 2008
Domenico said on thursday, june 26th, 2008
Before Curtis’ untimely demise, a waning Joy Division occasionally did this song live and you can hear a rare version of it on disc 3 of the JD Heart and Soul box set (yes, you should buy it). New Order revamped the tune quite a bit thereafter and I’m pretty sure that version is what most people would recognize best. As much as I love every incarnation of this tune, I maintain that Galaxie 500’s doleful, siverclouddreamy, slow-me-to-tears rendition stands tall as the most compelling of them all. And yes, our old band “the Treatment” did what was, in my humble opinion, a damn good cover of this Ian Curtis/Stephen Morris masterpiece. And we meant every word of it. Hey VJ, I’m in New Orleans!
Great post, Dave! Dom and Jason and I used to cover this song in our band the Treatment. I still get chills when I hear Ceremony because it was such a fun song to play live! Thanks for the goose bumps!