10 Songs You Didn't Know Were About Heroin
7. "True Faith" (New Order)
"True Faith" easily ranks as one of New Order’s most beloved tracks. Its meaning isn’t quite as simple.
Produced by the band and Stephen Hague, the synth-pop titans released the song in 1987 as a single and later on subsequent compilation albums. Although the title is never mentioned in the lyrics, many fans and critics have equated the religious-theme with the same high experienced from doing drugs.
In a 1999 interview with Q Magazine, lead singer, Bernard Sumner (who along with Peter Hook co-founded both New Order and Joy Division) stated he wanted to tackle the subject of addiction from the perspective of a junkie. “I don't touch smack but when I wrote that song I tried to imagine what it's like to be a smackhead and nothing else matters to you except that day's hit,” Sumner said.
In interviews of his own, Hook adamantly disagrees with his former bandmate (not the first time) regarding the heroin connotation. Heightening the conflict, Sumner claims the original lyrics contained the line, 'Now they're taking drugs with me,' but later changed it due to concerns of airplay censorship.