Two bars in control

Beyond the bars, beyond the song itself, the context of the track makes it even more significant. There is well-deep tragedy evoked through the chorus. The single only entered the upper reaches of the British chart in the weeks after Ian Curtis killed himself. Love tore him apart, but death brought the song a wide audience.

Joy Division produced frightening music and Curtis captured the fear. The jagged dancing, terror-filled eyes and melancholic intensity of the lyrics combined to cast a long shadow over Manchester music.

Ian Curtis has become so singular and potent in popular memory through a combination of words and vision: Kevin Cummins' photographs and Paul Morley’s journalism. Ian Curtis has tragedy tethered to him and his music, encasing all the conventional baggage of heterosexual masculine angst that is finding a new audience, soundtrack and iconography with the release of Control.

What makes Curtis significant, and adds even greater intensity to “Love will tear us apart” is what happened after his death. The three remaining members added a woman - Gillian Gilbert - to their ranks, and continued to produce music under the name New Order. Few bands survive the death of their lead singer. Ian Curtis and the first nine bars of “Love will tear us apart” allowed this survival to occur by fading out the thrash of punk and fading in the synthesiser soar.

Manchester is one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution. The rip of change to time, work and identity scarred the landscape. Manchester’s urban environment, so integral to theories of commerce, culture and politics, offers a stark reminder of the uneven nature of globalisation. Manchester, in moving from the “old” industries to the new creative industries of music, screen, design and tourism, is now in the business of marketing differences, rather than homogeneity. After the death of Curtis, Manchester could export music as it had once exported textiles.

Like wrinkles on a forehead, a city reveals its past. Manchester’s derelict cotton mills are overwritten by the popular music that created a newer vision. These sounds and images - from Take That to 808 State, the Buzzcocks to Simply Red, The Smiths to M-People, and New Order to the Happy Mondays - interlinked the histories of music and Manchester. It would be impossible to write of contemporary electronica without a sizeable chapter based in the north of England. The industrial past punctuates present rhythms.

It is no surprise that the Pied Piper trajectory of Joy Division’s ninth bar was followed by so many. New Order learnt to dance with black armbands, like most of us. In remembering the greatest songs of the last 25 years, few can claim a moment of creative genius. Between the eight and ninth bar, Ian Curtis arched beyond his own death. He sung to the future, but could not control it.