Regret

Writing in the first person is an abhorrent thing, but at the same time that’s what lyricists do when they open themselves up through song and it’s quite vulnerable.  Often, they write from their perspective using “I” statements and it doesn’t cheapen the meaning. In fact, it deepens it. Nevertheless, it’s not really my style of writing, but this subject is different, and we humans relate to music on a personal level – not one or two persons removed. That’s part of its power.

Given my high regard for songwriters and musicians, I thought I’d take a stab at writing in the first person about the New Order song, Regret, due to the deeply personal feelings it invokes in me. Indeed, that’s the power of song – it unites us all. Music is truly magical.

There’s really nothing that can bring people together the way song can – it’s a god-like ability that we mere mortals possess here on Planet Earth. We’d be fools not to avail ourselves of it on whatever level we can – as musicians, writers, and/or listeners. You have to lose yourself in song. New Order gets that. Duran Duran gets that. Not every artist understands that, but they do. (We can talk about The Doors another day and that window into the unconscious they provide through their shamanistic performances and early use of synths to transport the listener to another dimension.)

And very few bands are able to express raw, human emotion in such a relatable way in both song and verse as New Order and Duran Duran. The bands came from the post-punk movement and the second British invasion – one from Manchester (aka “Madchester”) and the other from Birmingham’s New Romantic scene, respectively, but what they have most in common is their deep roots in dance music. At the most basic level, they’re part of the amazing new wave in music.

Few lyricists can share their feelings with what some would call cryptic metaphors and evasive words, as many have said of Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon and New Order’s Bernard Sumner, but their lyrics do make sense. You just have to stop for a minute and think about the words, and listen to the music, which also tells the story – in sound. It’s an art to tell a story or share an experience in sound and vision, to quote David Bowie, and they do it. And of course, both bands loved and looked up to Bowie  – their slightly senior elder – with Duran Duran even touring with him. And punk. They drew inspiration from the punk scene.

In any event, what’s also beautiful is that both Simon and Bernard take a similar approach to song writing and understanding, as well. Perhaps it’s the zeitgeist. They want the listener to interpret the song as they would an ink blot, and they write through a stream of consciousness, sometimes in narrative form and other times more abstractly, but it’s never a direct line from personal experience – it’s somewhere in between (in The Twilight Zone?) – which makes the words so relatable and digestible to us masses.

That’s the magic of music – that very human element within us which helps us express the highs and lows of life and everything in between – all through the power of song and pure emotion. We’ve called people to war with music. We’ve celebrated life and birth with music, death and sorrow with music, happiness and glee with music, escapism and bliss with music – all of life’s travails and triumphs.

What’s incredible about music is that you remember the lyrics, always – 1 year later, 5 years later, 10 years later, 20 years later, and dare I say 30 or more years later. You remember the melody, the beat. You remember it all. The brain does that, and it’s hardwired to do that for a reason. Song is a part of who we are as a people. It brings us together. The older you get, the more there is to regret, but you never forget an important song, ever. That’s the magic of music. It’s evolutionary and revolutionary.

So what brings us here now is that I’ve had the thought of regret on my mind lately, as many Gen X do (Just ask us or read the YouTube comments for the official music video…man, it’s painful, the stories from us Xers), and I’ve been on a New Order kick. I’ve also been thinking about my resolve to never live a life of regret. There isn’t time for it.

The song was a gift from the ether that came into my mind as next up, so I played it. I’d be a fool not to listen. I didn’t know it perfectly matched how I felt. It just seemed right.

Now, when Regret came out in ’93, I was having the time of my life. I met the most interesting and special people I have ever known. Because this was the era of pre-internet for most people and we didn’t have cell phones as the norm, amazing people would come and go from my life when they moved, and I just lost touch. It didn’t seem feasible to keep up, so I didn’t, which is stupid (but the young mind doesn’t think too far ahead). Others died, or got sick. Some have married and divorced, experienced birth and more death. Things changed, so we became lost souls over the years. But I remember, I remember. Thank God for our ability to remember, but that’s not good enough. Life is for the living.

By chance, I’ve been in touch with a few of these wondrous souls. But by and large, the magic of others came and went too quickly for me. So I turn to New Order. I need to know someone else has felt this way. I need to know someone still feels this way. I need to get through it. I need to know that they got through it, and that we can all get through it – that we have each other, still, through the magic of music. I just need to know that someone can relate, and Bernard can. He always can. Bernard is such a sensitive soul.

At the time he wrote the lyrics to Regret, the band was having difficulties, and they had to produce the record, Republic (an allusion to Plato’s Republic…mind you), or go bankrupt. Right about the time it seemed that America, the great empire, was falling, the band too, may fail. That added to the pressure. This is not to take away from any of the album’s accomplishments. This is merely to say that Bernard and the band were feeling what was under the surface, the unsaid and unconscious – probably before Bernard was fully conscious of what was going on and he was able to access those feelings in only the way that song can allow. That’s the magic of music.

Bernard had also gone through a divorce in ’89 and remarried in the early 90s. He was 37 years old in ’93. It could be that he was at a crossroads as a new father who was approaching mid-life, looking back at what was and how that felt now that he’s finally settled (that would explain the authentic joy we hear in the song and see in the video).

Some have said that Regret is about the trials of celebrity and the troubles of touring, of putting down your roots. Then, you wrap in the challenges the band was having and how they took a 5 year break after Republic, and it makes you wonder. The song could be a combination of all these things.

What’s lovely about the way Bernard writes is that these ideas may have been under the surface and he allowed himself the space to access them, thanks to his process. He drinks wine and introspects with his keen self-awareness. He accessed this latent unconscious and shared it with us as a gift. Not many can do that, but Bernard Sumner can. I mean, he hypnotized Ian Curtis. Think about it. He has his methods. What a sensitive soul.

The unconscious is where we share feelings and emotions in common with others – it’s the realm at which we access eternal Truth; it’s where minds meet. It’s the 4th Dimension. We just have to access it, so I have tried to, too. New Order can transport you there. They take me to a certain place.

I’ve had Regret on my mind as I ponder my own relationship to regret. That song will always have a special place in my heart and it will forever remind me of better times. New Order is nostalgia. This song and the band will always represent a time in my life when things were the best, when anything was possible.

So I thought it might be nice to analyze Regret from my perspective in light of this swirling sea of considerations and emotions. What’s good is that everyone’s got their own interpretation of it, so don’t come for me if you don’t agree. Just move on, without regret.

Let’s start with the striking artwork, as one can expect from New Order’s long-time graphic artist Peter Seville.

It appears as though we have a man and a woman, traveling together at sunset by horse. Gotta light? Sure. Friends or lovers? Not sure. Is this what was or what could have been? Who knows, but it’s a striking scene as they strike a match and possibly a flame.

The image is framed in time, surrounded by water on the outside and a mesmerizing red and orange sunset in the background as the backdrop to this story of regret. Beautiful.

The opening guitar riff is catchy – it makes you want to dance and celebrate – but it’s hauntingly longing, too. Why the polarity? (because it’s New Order!)

It’s interesting that New Order writes the music first, and then Bernard adds the lyrics through his process, often alone, but sometimes with others. I wonder what his process was this time. Often, it involves wine.

When he sings, he sounds like he’s yearning for something. He sounds dreamy. What is he yearning for? Why does he have a wounded heart?

He sounds lofty when he says “you used to be a stranger, now you’re mine.” That’s a choice. Bernard thinks about everything he does.

The lyrics are a bit misleading. Is this a tale of sorrow or celebration? Of moving past regret or wallowing in it?

It’s helpful to work backwards. Start with the song’s outro to understand it’s meaning.

The lyrics follow with a breakdown afterward. See what you think for yourself.

[Verse 1]
Maybe I’ve forgotten the name and the address
Of everyone I’ve ever known, it’s nothing I regret
Save it for another day; it’s the school exam
The kids have run away

[Chorus 1]
I would like a place I could call my own
Have a conversation on the telephone
Wake up every day, that would be a start
I would not complain of my wounded heart
I was upset, you see, almost all the time
You used to be a stranger, now you are mine

[Verse 2]
I wouldn’t even trust you, I’ve not got much to give
We’re dealing in the limits, and we don’t know who with
You may think that I’m out of hand, that I’m naive, I’ll understand
On this occasion it’s not true
Look at me, I’m not you

[Chorus 2]
I would like a place I could call my own
Have a conversation on the telephone
Wake up every day, that would be a start
I would not complain of my wounded heart
I was a short fuse burning all the time
You were a complete stranger, now you are mine

[Chorus 3]
I would like a place I could call my own
Have a conversation on the telephone
Wake up every day, that would be a start
I would not complain about my wounded heart

[Outro]
Just wait till tomorrow
I guess that’s what they all say
Just before they fall apart

I think verse 1 is the future state that the singer wishes he was in, not his actual state. Why? We end with being him sad, waiting for the hope of tomorrow – the thought of which is breaking him because he knows his sad reality is that of a lonely rolling stone. But he must push the averse thought aside to have hope for tomorrow, as school children do when they flee from a test, but he’s not a young man anymore.

So the chorus tells the real tale. He would like a place he can call his own. He wants to settle down, and talk to old friends or lovers, if only he had their number. He’d have a reason to get up in the morning and feel love for the person of his dreams, this stranger, who he’s with now. He was upset all the time before they connected again, in his fantasy, that is.

Perhaps he was impatient and left a new relationship once or romanticized about an acquaintance. For whatever reason, it is a love unrequited or lost. That’s why he has a wounded heart. He wants that chance.

The second verse is a bit tougher to decipher. It seems that if they became involved with each other now, he would have his doubts about his ability to offer his love anything of worth. The future isn’t open anymore; the sky isn’t the limit (as in the song’s cover image). Maybe we are at the sunset of his life, not the sunrise. But maybe he’s a changed man.

And he wants to do it anyway, in reckless abandon, but he doesn’t see it as reckless. He’s begging his love to reconsider. He’s pleading for a chance before repeating the chorus – his wish again and repeating the chorus until the sad ending.

It sounds like the thoughtful longing of a man who wants to reconnect with his lost love, but cannot. There’s joy at the thought of what was or what could have been, but there’s sorrow because it has been lost and he’s longing, longing.

The song ends with the same sorrowful, yet joyful guitar riff and the singer’s resignation to regret as we fade into black.

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