A sudden sense of liberty

A love letter to the lyrics of True Faith by New Order

The title doesn’t even appear in the song, of course.

Same with Blue Monday, Thieves Like Us, Bizarre Love Triangle, Fine Time. Titles of New Order hits rarely appeared in their lyrics. But then they rarely appeared on their record sleeves, either. New Order seemed determined to keep you at arm’s length.

True Faith drew me in. I was around 12 or 13 and most singles I taped off the radio had hooks. Most videos did what videos were supposed to do — make pop stars look like pop stars. This was different.

The song was weird, in a really exciting way that I didn’t really understand or know what to do with. For the first time weird felt OK — warm, intoxicating, mysterious. The video was silly-memorable yet also mysterious. It made New Order seem the least pop-like pop stars I’d ever seen.

Things stick at that age, and True Faith got to me. It is euphoric, but also wistful and melancholic. It shape shifts its mood, resists definition. That ambiguity set me free, I think. I found it at the perfect time.

When I was a very small boy,
very small boys talked to me.
Now that we’ve grown up together,
they’re afraid of what they see.

I wasn’t quite a very small boy then. But I hadn’t grown up yet either. I was in limbo, able to look back but uncertain about the future. This verse, with its malevolent nursery rhyme rhythm, subjected me to an involuntary premonition. It was a weird, outside-yourself kind of feeling. But then, True Faith is a weird, outside-yourself kind of song. It was a madeleine into the future. It’s now a portal back to that feeling, that limbo. A limbo between innocence and experience, between the past and the future, between freedom and the price we pay for it.

I feel so extraordinary
Something’s got a hold on me
I get this feeling I’m in motion,
A sudden sense of liberty

The words of someone transported. An epiphany of the faithful, perhaps. Is this a song about religion? Perhaps back then I was dimly aware it might be. Its title isn’t sung, its dread of the future never labelled, yet that image of fearful men is coloured by each. Small boys grown up together, but pulled apart. Perhaps even then I figured that would require a force with the capacity to shape minds and erode trust.

But maybe I’m conflating my own sudden sense of liberty — my initiation into pop music — with the idea of religious epiphany. Certainly back then the song itself felt like a divine occurrence. Music wasn’t simply a click away. Songs you liked appeared on the radio and TV, suddenly, without warning. It was a blessed experience, and you simply prayed you’d be ready with the blank tape on pause.

I don’t care ’cause I’m not there,
And I don’t care if I’m here tomorrow

So maybe it’s not about religion, after all. Perhaps it’s about drugs. Or music. Or music and drugs. It would figure — Manchester, late 80s. But this is hedonism, not oblivion. Limbo — a glimpse from outside yourself, a realisation that only now and this really matter.

Looking at it now the song seems less about a particular object of devotion, and more about devotion itself — the dreamlike state of True Faith, testimony from someone momentarily stood outside of themselves. Blinkers off, for better or worse.

That’s the price that we all pay,
our valued destiny comes to nothing.
I can’t tell you where we’re going,
I guess there’s just no way of knowing.

Despite the sense of abandon, growing up comes at a terrible cost in True Faith. References to adult relationships are dotted around the three verses. They bring fear, guilt, disappointment and failure.

Again and again I’ve taken too much
Of the things that cost you too much.

You took my time and you took my money.

Now I fear you’ve left me standing,
In a world that’s so demanding.