“Elegia” is a song by the British electro/rock band, New Order. Unusually for New Order, it is an instrumental and a waltz. It can be found on their third studio album, Low-Life (1985). According to drummer Stephen Morris in an interview with Select magazine in 1993, the album version of the song was a 5-minute highlight of a recording 17 and a half minutes long. As the internet became widely available, a poor-quality mp3, allegedly of this recording, surfaced in the mid-90’s. However, it was not until the release of the compilation boxset, Retro, in 2002 that the full recording officially saw the light of day. The song was used as the conclusion to the bonus fifth disc included with early releases of the set. The mp3 that found its way onto the internet did appear to be the same as the song later released. This version was also released on the 2008 Collector’s Edition of Low-Life. Elegia is Latin for elegy. The band have stated that the song was written in memory of the late Ian Curtis, lead singer of the band’s former incarnation, Joy Division. The album version of the song was featured in the Academy Award-nominated short film More by Mark Osborne, the film Pretty In Pink, the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode “Compulsion”. It was also used in an American Masters documentary on writer Truman Capote and in “Rust” – a black-and-white music video by Nenko Genov.
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