“We would just have done it balls out, legs akimbo like Status Quo. and probably messed it up”: The classic song that gave an iconic post-punk band their biggest hit – and became an epitaph for their tragic singer

Joy DIvision performing onstage in 1980.

At the point in their career when they recorded Love Will Tear Us Apart, Joy Division were one of the most vital new bands in the country.

Fronted by charismatic singer Ian Curtis, their charged and foreboding soundscapes were the work of intensely driven young men inspired by the Sex Pistols to create a new rock music of fearsome power – and meaning – out of post-industrial pre-gentrification Manchester’s urban decay.