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Joy Division - Ice Age

It's January 2nd. The temperature in Maine hovers between 10º and -10º F. We will be hit by a bombogenesis (weather bomb) on Thursday and Friday which will drop close to a foot of snow, followed by temperatures that could plunge 20 below.

Meanwhile, the U.S. President has just responded to North Korea's most overt nuclear threat to date with a response akin to a mentally deranged joke -- the most unstatesmanlike exchange in U.S. history.

Seems like the perfect moment to revisit Joy Division's Ice Age:


Ice Age was recorded in 1979, but unreleased until its appearance on the 1981 posthumous album, Still. The song is a great example of the bands early sound, driven by a frenzied post-punk beat and distorted guitars. Many listeners debate the meaning of Ice Age. Some argue that the song is a literal expression of Ian Curtis' Cold War anxiety. Others perceive it as a song about feeling disconnection (the disintegration of a relationship). It's not hard to imagine that it is both.

Tonight, I imagine Ian Curtis returning from the afterworld. He sings a song about nuclear stand-offs between insane megalomaniacs and the imminence of climate change.

"I've seen the real atrocities,
Buried in the sand,
Stockpiled for safety,
While we stand holding hands.
I'm living in the Ice age,
I'm living in the Ice age,
Nothing will hold,
Nothing will fit,
Into the cold,
It's not an eclipse."

If love doesn't bring us together, it will certainly tear us apart. 

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