One of the most powerful things about music is that it is the soundtrack of our lives. Fellow music fanatic Sharon Hepworth started a music challenge on Twitter for the month of July. Each day, fans around the world will select a song from their life and describe what it means to us. These are my songs. #SoundtrackToYourLife
Day 13
Even with the epic influence that Joy Division had on the music world, New Order was always the band that I connected with more between the two. Bernard Sumner’s vocals and lyrics were at my level. I think I understood him, but I couldn’t say the same for Ian Curtis. And while I believe New Order peaked in the late eighties, no other song from the band resonated with me more than the nineties hit “Regret”. It’s one of my summer songs.
The track brings me back to the Summer of ‘93. I was home from college, spending my days working a crap internship and my nights hanging out with old high school friends. It was a great, great summer, and “Regret” was on full rotation on my go-to radio station WDRE. The big concert of the summer for us was New Order with 808 State at the old Brendan Byrne Arena in Jersey. The acoustics sucked, but the song still radiated. “Regret” contained one of Sumner’s more memorable guitar hooks with the band, which had these pregnant-like pauses built into them, which helped frame Hooky’s infectious bass lines that skittishly danced along the upper octaves. As Hooky said himself, I think “Regret” is one of the last great New Order tracks.
“You used to be a stranger. Now you are mine.”