The Drug That Brings Me Near...

Substance
New Order (1987)
One of the most brilliant collections of music ever pressed to vinyl or burned to a compact disc is turning 35 years old today.  Substance is a compilation of New Order singles that had been released from their inception in 1980 through the summer of 1987.  The album has many personal favorites of mine, including Ceremony, Temptation, Blue Monday, Thieves Like Us, The Perfect Kiss, Shellshock, Bizarre Love Triangle, and True Faith.

The entire CD release of this album has been made available on the band's official YouTube channel to stream for free.  When it was released on compact disc, it came with a second disc that includes all of the B-sides from the collection of 12-inch singles that were on the original vinyl pressing of the album.

True Faith was the most recent song on Substance.  It had been released as a single just 28 days earlier on July 20th, 1987 and was included as the final song on the vinyl release of the album. 

True Faith

New Order (1987)

I feel so extraordinary

Something's got a hold on me

I get this feeling I'm in motion

A certain sense of liberty

I don't care 'cause I'm not there

And I don't care if I'm here tomorrow

Again and again I've taken too much

Of the things that cost you too much

I used to think that the day would never come

I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun

My morning sun is the drug that brings me near

To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear

I used to think that the day would never come

That my life would depend on the morning sun

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

That's the price that we all pay

And the value of destiny comes to nothing

I can't tell you where we're going

I guess there's just no way of knowing

I used to think that the day would never come

I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun

My morning sun is the drug that brings me near

To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear

I used to think that the day would never come

That my life would depend on the morning sun...

I feel so extraordinary

Something's got a hold on me

I get this feeling I'm in motion

A certain sense of liberty

The chances are we've gone too far

You took my time and you took my money

Now I fear you've left me standing

In a world that's so demanding

I used to think that the day would never come

I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun

My morning sun is the drug that brings me near

To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear

I used to think that the day would never come

That my life would depend on the morning sun...

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I'll finally have an opportunity to see New Order in concert next month.  I got tickets for this tour in 2019 when they first went on sale with the expectation that we'd be seeing them in September 2020.  That didn't happen for obvious reasons.  The tour was rescheduled for September 2021, but it ended up being postponed for another year and is now scheduled to kick off one month from today in Toronto.

It was only three years ago when this tour was announced, but it feels like an entirely different lifetime; a world in which none of us had ever heard of Covid-19 and when the term "social distancing" was a personal preference and not a mandate from the department of health.  Thanks in large part to the anti-vaxxers who gave the virus plenty of fresh meat to keep it alive, the original virus has been given the opportunity to mutate in so many different ways that any hopes of eradicating it like we did to Polio are pretty much gone.  Covid is here to stay and it's still killing over 450 people a day in this country alone, but we're all getting on with our lives while we still have lives to get on with.  So far, there has been no announcements about another postponement of The Unity Tour, so it looks like New Order and the Pet Shop Boys are getting on with their lives too.