“Ceremony” by Joy Division

"Ceremony" is one of the very last songs Joy Division wrote, with Ian Curtis supplying the words, and the band got it on tape before their singer died. It didn't die with him: the survivors re-recorded it, along with its B-side "In a Lonely Place", and carried both into New Order, and Factory issued it as that band's debut single in March 1981, Martin Hannett producing. A second version followed in October 1981 with new member Gillian Gilbert on board.

Bernard Sumner has said they wrote it a few weeks before Curtis died, hoping to heal him through music, to keep him in the band and remind him what a future he had; by Sumner's own account, it didn't work. At the time the band heard it as a big step forward and a potential major hit, and Sumner still calls it uplifting, lifted higher by Curtis's words.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.