tylus Magazine's Seconds column examines those magic moments that arise when listening to a piece of music that strikes that special chord inside. That pounding drum intro; a clanging guitar built-up to an anthemic chorus; that strange glitchy noise you've never quite been able to figure out; that first kiss or heartbreak; a well-turned rhyme that reminds you of something in your own past so much, it seems like it was written for you—all of those little things that make people love music. Every music lover has a collection of these Seconds in his or her head; these are some of ours.

There is a side to Joy Division’s music that imposes stillness, stasis both willing and unwilling. They had songs that could suck the air out of the room. A wiser man than I has noted that Joy Division were the most Schopenhauerian of bands, one of the few to fully evoke the worldview of that famous pessimist. But even in their hot-blooded punk jaunts they remain(ed) more Thanatos than Eros, more Stop than Go. The most striking part of their sound was Ian Curtis’ irreproducible delivery, but like all great rock bands Joy Division were more than the sum of its irreplaceable parts.

“The Kill” is actually two songs, but I’ve only heard one of them. There is an earlier track, part of the Warsaw demos the band cut in 1977, but nothing I’ve read suggests I’m missing much. This version has only been officially released in the Heart and Soul box and the Still compilation; it was recorded before Unknown Pleasures but wouldn’t have fit there. On their two studio albums Joy Division were very much about restraint, albeit against their will (how fitting!) thanks to Martin Hannett. “The Kill” is too fast, too energetic.

Well, energetic is the wrong word, as it always will be with Joy Division. Driven, maybe. Possessed. “The Kill” sounds as if something in the music is driving these four past limits; past exhaustion, past caring, past rationality. It’s a simple enough set of lyrics, some of Curtis’ customary oblique imagery arranged around the refrain “Just something that I knew I had to do / But through it all I kept my eyes on you.” The sound of Curtis’ voice is even harder to take than normal during those lines—he sounds as if he’s putting a bullet between the eyes of a pet, or a loved one.

“The Kill” is one of the songs the band recorded or re-recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport as they prepared their debut in April 1979, and it is in good company; “Autosuggestion” and “The Only Mistake” rival it in power, “From Safety to Where” and “Something Must Break” are more streamlined, catchier; “They Walked in Line” sounds nearly as obsessive. But there’s something special about “The Kill,” some collision of the elements Joy Division used that make it exceptional. I can go weeks, months, seasons even without thinking about the song, but when something brings it to my mind I can’t hear anything else for hours or days. Just the refrain, cycling though my head

Just something that I knew I had to do
But through it all I kept my eyes on you
Just something that I knew I had to do
But through it all I kept my eyes on you
Just something that I knew I had to do
But through it all I kept my eyes on you

If this goes on long enough, I start feeling mildly feverish. I notice I’m doing things more quickly, I don’t sleep as well. Curtis never sounds happy with what he’s singing—and with his words, who would—but here the lyrics themselves reflect the feeling of an excruciating but necessary, grim duty that is always implicit in his voice. The rest of the band follows suit, making it sound as if their instruments were playing them. “The Kill” is a song like any other, noises recorded to tape, and so I’m sure there are moments of relative pause; but in memory it is one ceaseless, heedless death-dash, eager to reach the end not for any reward but just to terminate, to be extinguished, to run no more.

If that was what most music sounded like, the world would be a depressing place. But it doesn’t and if the world still is, it’s for wholly different reasons. When it comes to music sometimes it sounds as if everything reflects that inexorable Go, and it’s hard not to wish for a little Stop. Even at their most turbulent, most fervent, that’s what the music of Joy Division gives us, something beyond ecstasy or heartbreak. Something as simple as compulsion, as impossible as cessation. And through it all, you can feel their eyes on you.