10 Musician And Band Names With Dark Unusual Origins

Joy Division is another band with a literary name, although it is a far cry from a humorous nod to a steam-powered sex toy. The phrase was lifted from Yehiel De-Nur's controversial 1953 novella House of Dolls, in which joy divisions refer to groups of Jewish women held as sex slaves in Auschwitz. Sadly, it is true that brothels were commonplace in concentration camps during the Second World War. The women who were imprisoned there were regularly forced to 'reward' co-operative non-Jewish prisoners and prison guards with sexual favours.

Joy Division's members were intrigued by the darker side of life, and they frequently employed imagery of fascism in their works. For example, their first EP features a picture of a Hitler Youth member banging a drum on its cover. Accusations of neo-Nazi sympathies abounded during Joy Division's time in the limelight, but this was far from the truth. According to the band's drummer Stephen Morris, their intention was to keep the memories of the sacrifices that their parents and grandparents had made during the war alive.