Just this week, I had just finished Truman Capote's superbly chilling 'In Cold Blood'. It's the kind of book that sits with you long after you've finished the last page and I was in no hurry to pick up another. Capote's non-fiction novel really makes you delve into the nature of violence and contemplate the indignity of death. In 'In Cold Blood', death was totally devoid of any romance pertaining to it.
The idealism that surrounds the early death of rock n roll stars stands in stark contrast to this. The 'too fast to live, too young to die' ethos that romanticises early death as almost something to aspire to, was a world away from the contemplations Capote had ushered upon me.
When my good friend Kimi passed on to me Deborah Curtis' 'Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division' I was a little aprehensive. Did I want to take on another book in which the major theme was (once again) death? The Joy Division/New Order story and catalogue have always held a huge interest for me and Ian Curtis is at the nucleus of that story. However, this is a rock bio with a different slant. It is Ian Curtis' story - as told by his wife. So it was decided that I would once again dance with death, although this time it would be to the beat of Joy Division's death-disco kick-drum (and all within the comforts of my oversized beanbag of course).
Here is a modern rock and roll hero that many an upcoming band claim as a massive influence. A hero whose death has been mourned and romantcisised as much as any other. I am only half-way through the book, but it seems from Deborah's perspective that Ian Curtis had always been seduced by the idea of an early death.
His heros were Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin - all died young at the peak of their careers, leaving a mythologised legacy behind them. Sure Bowie was a massive influence, but it was Bowie's obsession with death that fascinated him. Ian had always said that he wouldn't live past his early twenties. Deborah thought it was just a stage he was going through - a kind of dark and brooding posturing.
Maybe he always knew that everything in his life was too intense for him to withstand for a whole and complete lifetime. His lyrical content and performances certainly lend to this notion. You can see it in the performance below, where his dancing toward the end emulates the body spasms associated with the epilepsy that he suffered intensly from. In fact, they were so closely linked as to be inextricable. After every gig, Ian would sit up in his living room waiting for his inevitable post-gig fit. Maybe he felt and (thankfully for us) expressed a lifetime's worth of intensity and emotions in his very short life - to only be left spent, exhausted and hopeless. Where the only option left was one final and dramatic performance. Suicide.
While Ian as an icon and a legacy is undoubtedly romantic, can his early death be considered as a major reason for this? While most fans would probably believe so, from what I have glommed from Deborah's book, it left a terrible rupture in the lives of those close to him without a trace of the romantic rock n roll ideal.
Though it was his musical legacy that enabled his legend to attain its longevity and iconic status, you simply can't view this legacy without Ian's death looming large in the shadows.
Was Ian's death romantic? I suppose the only person who could answer that is the man himself.
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