Love Vigilantes

"Love Vigilantes"
Song by New Order from the album Low-Life
Released 13 May 1985
Recorded 1984, Jam and Britannia Row Studios, London
Genre Indie pop[1]
Length 4:16
Label Factory
Writer
Producer New Order
Low-Life track listing

"Love Vigilantes"
(1)		 "The Perfect Kiss"
(2)

"Love Vigilantes" is a song by the English band New Order. It first appeared as the opening track of their 1985 album Low-Life. The song is a departure from New Order's usual style in many ways. Described by allmusic.com as "at its core a campfire singalong", "Love Vigilantes" is decidedly pop and shows inspiration from American country and folk music.[2] In a 2014 list compiled by The Guardian, "Love Vigilantes" was ranked ninth in a list of the ten best New Order songs.[3]

Lyrics

According to Bernard Sumner, "Love Vigilantes" is one of the few songs for which he started out wanting to tell a story rather than his usual method of listening to a newly composed piece and writing lyrics to match the mood of the music.[4] Having "decided to write a Redneck song", Sumner's lyrics tell a rather "tongue-in-cheek" tale of a soldier returning home from Vietnam only to find that his wife had received a telegram informing her that he had died.[4] Sumner further relates that the ending is open to interpretation. Either the soldier had actually died and returns as a ghost or the telegram was sent mistakenly and he is quite alive. Either way, he finds her lying on the floor having committed suicide with the telegram in her hand, an ending Sumner describes as "a very country tragedy".[4]

Music

The music of "Love Vigilantes" forgoes most of the electronics that otherwise define New Order's typical sound.[3] After an opening of four hits on a snare drum, the music is built around multiple hooks, starting with the intro theme, which Spin magazine called "Beatlesque",[5] played by Sumner on a melodica followed by his acoustic guitar riff which repeats throughout the song.[2] Combined with a synthesized low end and Peter Hook's higher "twangy" bass, this new sound for New Order was "gorgeously lush" and "unlike anything that New Order has attempted before".[6]

Covers

References

  1. ↑ Lindsay, Cam (8 September 2015). "An Essential Guide to New Order". Exclaim!. Retrieved 11 April 2016.
  2. 1 2 Janovitz, Bill. "Love Vigilantes". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  3. 1 2 Simpson, Dave (6 Aug 2014). "New Order: 10 of the best". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 Gale, Lee (28 Feb 2012). "GQ&A: Bernard Sumner". GQ (British). Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Swenson, John (June 1985). "Spins". SPIN. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  6. ↑ Marszalek, Julian (1 June 2015). "Believe In A Land Of Love: New Order's Low-Life 30 Years On". The Quietus. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
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