Ian Curtis 18 maj 1980 R.I.P.

Ian Curtis var sångare i Joy Division, bandet som med sin musik på ett mycket personlig plan ledsagade mig genom en distinkt formativ tid av mitt liv. För exakt 40 år sedan, den 18 maj 1980, tog han livet av sig hemma i Macclesfield utanför Manchester, endast 23 år gammal. Ingen vet riktigt säkert varför. Men i grunden handlade sannolikt mest om att han plågades av sin sjukdom. Han led av epilepsi och fick en cocktail av olika mediciner mot det. Dessutom plågades han också, lite motsägelsefullt, av bandets allt större framgångar. Han fick allt oftare epileptiska anfall, också på scen, och föreföll allt oftare trött och deprimerad. Ändå blev de flesta överrumplade av det drastiska beslut han tog. Trots att han gjort ett självmordsförsök en månad innan. Då tog han tabletter men ångrade sig och ringde själv efter hjälp.

Bild: Fotograf okänd. 

Hans liv blev alltmer komplicerat, med bandet som turnerade hektiskt, med fru och barn som han börjat separera ifrån då han träffat en ny kvinna. Kanske framkallade den kommande USA-turnén ångest? Men de övriga bandmedlemmarna och många andra runt honom vittnar om att han verkligen verkade se fram emot resan. Andra åter säger att han måste ha plågats av alla förväntningar på honom och att han, som den sanna hedersman han sägs ha varit, inte ville svika andra genom att backa ur. Så många, på skivbolaget och i bandet, var beroende av hans beslut. Han hade också grälat med sin fru strax före han tog sitt liv. Det sista han gjorde innan han hängde sig var att se filmen ”Stroszek” av Werner Herzog på tv. En film som handlar om en man som emigrerar till USA men som i slutet av filmen tar sitt liv då inte förväntningarna infriats.

De övriga medlemmarna fortsatte sedan som New Order. Själv såg jag aldrig Joy Division live men däremot New Order, 1982 på Huset nära Gröna Lund i Stockholm. Men Joy Division hade något mer. De hade Ian Curtis. Må han vila i frid.

Lyssna till ”Dead Souls” och läs Jon Wozencrofts, Daniel Meadows beskrivningar ur den fantastiska boken ”This Searching Light, the Sunand Everything Else – Joy Division, The Oral Story” av Jon Savage så kanske ni förstår vad jag menar:

”Once Joy Division really found their seam, they almost always started with ´Dead Souls´. That track has a very, very progressive, intense build-up; it´s nearly three minutes before the vocals comes in. This gives Ian a chance both to calibrate – to position himself to start to read the atmosphere, to feel how the band behind him are locking in with each other on that particular evening – and to decide how far he wants to travel. Once he was able to position or balance himself to go out of his body, he would use performance as a way of projecting himself, channeling. I saw it with my own eyes and ears. There were some very powerful things happening, but there´s also an interesting feature in that there was no real light show in Joy Division performances; everything was quite stark, quite monumental. Just by that physical necessity, because of his epilepsy, which I didn´t know about at the time, Ian would be the point of focus, so he could taket hat aspect of himself as a point of focus and amplify it and project it, so that there was this incredible movement going on that you can´t quantify. It was very ritualistic” (Jon Wozencroft i ”This Searching Light, the Sun and Everything Else – Joy Division, The Oral Story”)

”I´d been to gigs and seen all kinds of bands, but I´d never seen a performer, a singer, where you had to keep watching him. You couldn´t not look. He wore these cool dark clothes, bu the was completely sweated through, very quickly, doing this extraordinary dance. You weren´t looking at anybody else […] It was unlike anything I´d ever seen. It was strangely private. He was doing something I suppose a lot of young men sort of do in front of a mirror. It had that private feel to it, made public, and there was a real tension in that” (Daniel Meadows i ”This Searching Light, the Sun and Everything Else – Joy Division, The Oral Story”)

Mark Reeder, Berlin-baserad producent och musikorakel, sätter fingret på Ian Curtis tillstånd mot slutet då han balanserade genom en uppåtstigande karriär som sångare, ett vanligt familjeliv med frun Debbie och dottern Natalie i Macclesfield, och en nyfunnen älskarinna i belgiska Annik:

”He loved the baby, he wanted to be in the relationship, bu the also wanted the relationship with Annik at the same time, and as it wasn´t going anywhere, the home relationship was falling apart. And then the band and the pressure – all these things were manifesting in the epilepsy. I don´t think it was any other reason than being under extreme stress. In his young mind, he couldn´t deal with that […] Ian had left a note […] It wasn´t about the band at all. And it wasn´t really about Debbie, either. It was just that he couldn´t deal with the situation” (Mark Reeder i ”This Searching Light, the Sun and Everything Else – Joy Division, The Oral Story”)

De andra medlemmarna i bandet plågas förstås fortfarande av att inte ha reagerat mer över hans tillstånd. Ungdomligt oförstånd och framgångens berusning är deras främsta förklaringar. Det är alltid lätt att se klarare när man ser bakåt men oftast ohyggligt svårt i realtid, även om man står en person nära.

”The stuff he was taking anyway was pretty heavy. He was on Largactil. It must have been horrible. He was having more and more fits. The more successfull we got, or the more you could see success beckoning you, the worse Ian´s condition becambe” (Stephen Morris, trummis i Joy Division i ”This Searching Light, the Sun and Everything Else – Joy Division, The Oral Story”)

”The thing was, we listened to Ian, Ian told us he was all right, and we believed him. I don´t know what else you´re supposed to do at twenty-one” (Pete Hook, basist i Joy Division i ”This Searching Light, the Sun and Everything Else – Joy Division, The Oral Story”)

”Generally, Ian was incredibly pleasant, polite and really nice, but sometimes in life if you don´t have teeth, people take advantage of that […] I think very highly of him, not just because he´s my mate and because of old times, but because I genuinely think that he was what people say he was: he was extremely talented. You couldn´t take your eyes off him as a performer, and he was the real deal. It wasn´t some front or some image or anything, he was the real McCoy, and like all of us, we´ve all got our personality flaws. I suppose his worst flaw was trying to be positive and trying to tell you what you wanted to hear, when really you just want: ´Just tell me the truth, Ian, what do you really think? It might upset med, but just tell me what you really think.´And I think he found that a little bit difficult to do. I tell you, that was his worst fault” (Bernard Sumner, gitarrist i Joy Division i ”This Searching Light, the Sun and Everything Else – Joy Division, The Oral Story”)