New Order – Temptation

by sandsmith50

Well so here I am 50 blogs on, later than planned as I have now been 50 for just over two months. But of course you, dear reader, will understand that these special dates in reality mean nothing at all other than what we read into them, and I plan to get better at being late for everything henceforth apart from death which I will be precisely on time for. I still find it odd that I am writing backwards as far as you are concerned, though the chances are that you won’t bother to read posts 49 to 1 so you won’t suffer any disorientation at all.

Anyway, the point of this blog was to do it and write about some music that I really like and try to explain why it means something to me. One post for each year of my life. It turns out to be easier to talk about what it means to me than to say why I like it, perhaps this is one of the things that I really like about music it is hard to convey anything about why music is good with words, you just have to listen to it.

I have quite enjoyed writing the blog although it is fair to say I have slipped rather in the last month or so but I think now I am freed of the responsibility of a desert island like 50 I can relax and maybe just write about the songs that I chant (well it can’t be described as singing, chanting is probably stretching it) as I cycle to work, drown out the noise in boring meetings (just in case you are wondering this would be silent chanting in my head) etc. etc. And I am conscious I have left lots of great stuff out and I hope I will hear lots of new great stuff.

In other words if I carry on I will try and cut back on the nostalgia trips but for one last time …

When I went inter-railing with Chris and Izaac in 1982 having finished A-levels it felt like the world changed in the month we were away. Partly I changed, travelling through bits of Europe by myself and realizing that I could probably survive as an adult, almost managing to chat up a girl and camping in the arctic circle. When we left Temptation had been released and it broke all the rules (self imposed) about what I should like in music at that time, it was really long and very danceable. Oh and of course as the possessor of a pair of green eyes it seemed to speak to me. But it was a John Peel record, this meant that it belonged to a small club of aficionados. Imagine our surprise when it started creeping into the charts, ok so it only made it to 29 but still it felt like a revolution. If other people liked New Order enough to buy the record then maybe the world was becoming a better place. What a daft idea but then I was only 18 and I think in those days daft ideas seemed more plausible than they do now, when everyone has seen it all, done it all and rejected it all. Or perhaps it is just the optimism of youth.