I think the "you" in 'you take my place in the showdown' was possibly
directed at the rest of the band members.
They carried on as New Order and took Ian's (Ian knew if a member of
the band left, for whatever reason, the group would carry on under a
new guise with new songs) place in the showdown..ie, the musical
limelight.

Just my guess..but as you've said, only Ian really knew the meaning
to what he wrote..it's the same with most writers.


--- In unknownpleasures@..., Julijana Zitnjak
<jzitnjak@y...> wrote:
> Hi,
> I guess the cheerful summertime doesn't go well with discussion
about Joy Division (or everyone's on holiday).
>
> I don't think anyone except Ian could know exactly what he'd ment
by his lyrics, so unless he'd explained the somewhere we can only
guess.
> My idea about "you" in "you take my place in the showdown" was at
first that it was directed to the listener, but now you've brought it
up it might be of religious origin, as Heart and Soul is a religious
song. Ian had always struck me as interested in religion, there are
religious themes in many of his lyrics, as well as philosophical
themes, themes from literature, and themes about love and life in
general. I don't know how much he was into religion privately-I'm not
really that interested in his private life, that's why I didn't try
harder to get Touching From a Distance. But he was definitely
interested in religion, as well as many other things.
>
> I have to stress now that I'm not a native English speaker, so
someone from English speaking territories (preferably North of
England) could perform a better analysis knowing all the linguistic
details, metaphors and specific figures of speech that I'm probably
not aware of.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jul.
>
>
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