Challenge: Find One Good Line in New Order's 'Get Ready'

Well I've been driving in the wrong gear It's been a long and lonely ride It's been winter for a whole year But you couldn't hurt me if you tried

are all, imho, good lines. Republic is far worse than Get Ready lyrically, especially "Times Change" which contains the worst lines from Bernard:

In a manger like Christ I lay Yellow fever, yellow hay

but I generally agree with Dr. C, you don't buy New Order records for the lyrics. Bernard conceded early on that he would never be a patch on Ian Curtis when it came to lyric writing.

Is it something in the delivery that's changed?

there has been a gradual change in Bernard's singing over the years. It has got progressively stronger. On "Ceremony" and many tracks on the Movement album it is difficult to make out what he is singing.

The greatness of NO lies in the direct contrast between the "banality" of Sumner's lyrics and the unimpeachable genius of the music, which expresses what Sumner can't quite put into words. Small versus big, if that makes any sense.

Lovely bristols / Those Irish lasses
My fave's Sharon / Please believe me
Andrea! / Now you're talking
It was blackmail / but now it's stalking

Oh, I don't know who's my fave / It's not Jim, I should say
I'm a man in a jail / Cos some birds I waylaid
Caroline / She's a honey
She's looking at me / Kind of funny
You're not a friend, that's for sure
You shopped me to the Corrs / You shopped me to the Corrs

And so on. Best stop there I feel

But have they said that they suck MORE than before?

**you don't buy New Order records for the lyrics**

I'm not sure you got my point Mark. I'm NOT saying that the lyrics don't matter because with NO the music is so good. I'm saying that the lyrics are GOOD, sometimes VERY good. The fact that they are good in a slightly odd way, or at first may seem to be actually BAD,(or ARE at times poor) is a major part of NO's greatness.

**Bernard conceded early on that he would never be a patch on Ian Curtis when it came to lyric writing**.

But he's not *worse*, just different. Thank goodness he hasn't spent twenty years trying to ape Curtis.

Temptation's "Oh you've got Green eyes/Blue Eyes etc" and "I've never seen anyone quite like you before" move me in their plainness and simplicity as much as anything IC wrote. It's partly delivery and musical context too.

MC has said simply and elegantly exactly what I was fumbling about trying to get at. Thanks! I'll get my coat.

PERFECTION.

I'm with Mssrs. Carlin and C here, unsurprisingly.

but how can 'we' be like 'a' crystal ?

There ya go.

Oh wait, you said GOOD lines! Oh nevermind.

But if Jesus comes to take your hand
I won't let go, I won't let go

I should have known Dan would start the Get Ready food fight. The fries are gonna fly. Hide the ketchup!

"We're Like Crystal/We Break Easy!"

There ya go.

Oh wait, you said GOOD lines! Oh nevermind.

Yes, yes, but surely you know Crystal isn't even THEIR SONG!

Come on if we're gonna make fun of Barney lyrics, let's at least use ones he actually wrote! There are plenty of clunkers here to choose from. Bad lyrics are like a little surprise plastic toy in the New Order cereal box! Let's see...what's that one I heard when I was hungover as hell one day waiting for a bus to take me to the airport...

"I got thirsty for a beer/then I had to go to sea/the sea was very rough/it made me feel sick/but I like that kinda stuff/it beats arithmetic"

Come on, it takes a certain kind of genius to come up with this stuff!

?

You're certainly not the only one, Rockist: there's still plenty of pissed off Joy Division fans who resent NO for trivializing their legacy. I've always thought NO deepened JD's work. They're the only band who've made something interesting (instead of being merely complacent) out of happiness.

Maybe when Dr. C gets on here again, he will confirm my sanity.

GW26359061 CRYSTAL SUMNER B/HOOK P/MORRIS S/GILBERT G
Performers: NEW ORDER
NEW ORDER
HOLLAND JOOLS

This from Neworderonline explains :

"Crystal was originally planned as a track exclusively for mfs which bernard gave to mfs label manager, mark reeder. he wrote the song for mark and also sang it and i and a couple of other mfs artists made the music for our versions (not remixes). but after pete tong heard them, he thought it was the best new order single he´d heard since blue monday (not knowing that bernard had given the song to mark as a present) and the project was then rearranged to become a new order record.

what that meant was that mfs were not actually allowed to release it as originally planned - in june 2000 - until new order knew what they were going to do with it.

so much time has gone by without it getting released. pete let me put it on my wet&hard compilation album hotkunst and in the meantime we have now finally been granted permission to release it in germany. the vocals have been used on the new order version of the song (theirs is more guitar sounding) and the track sounds nothing like the mfs versions. their track was produced by steve osborne and mixed by mark stent. new order are currently in realworld studios making tracks for their new album. it´s not sure if the new order crystal will be their new single even...

it´s all a bit confusing though i must say!..."

~ An interesting intro. OK, so some ppl said it recalled Transmission, but at the same time it wasn't an exact copy

~ non specific, mysterious lyrics delievered in a doleful way (at least the verse was). So in that respect it was similar to the band's 'classic' work such as 'Blue Monday'.

~ it sounds busy and layered. Sparse New Order doesn't work. 'Times Change' from Republic and 'Vicious Streak' from Get Ready are among their worst songs.

~ in spite of all the above, it is not a difficult song. It has immediacy. I first heard it at the end of '24 Hour Party People' and was compelled to stay until the end of the of the closing credits. I was humming it on the way home from the cinema and the next day too.

Now how much of the above is due to the influence of the Chemical Brothers and how much the band could achieve on their own these days is a moot point. But it made me wish that the Chemicals had worked with the band on Waiting for the Sirens' Call and the dearth of the qualities I've highlighted above on most of Get Ready goes some way to explain why it is an inferior album to Brotherhood or Technique.

Yes I was indeed completely and entirely confused about Crystal. Thanks Dr. C, for setting my drunk and far-too-cocky ass straight! I do wish it wasn't their song, though, because the fact is I simply don't like it very much! I don't think the lyrics are all that bad, though, even with the honey/money part, and I guess that was the point I was trying to make.

Ha ha - did someone say 'not bad enough to be New Order lyrics?' Oh shush!

Vicious Streak is possibly my favorite NO song ever, nowadays.