‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ is a song by English rock band New Order, released as a single in November 1986 from their fourth studio album, Brotherhood (1986), which reached the top five on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart, and No. 5 on the Australian ARIA Charts in March 1987. It failed to enter the top 40 of both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100; however, a new mix included on The Best of New Order was released in 1994 and charted at No. 98 on the Hot 100. In 2004, the song was ranked No. 204 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
This song explores the confusion and excitement of passionate love. The title does not appear in the lyrics, but the "Bizarre Love Triangle" indicates the conflicted feelings of the singer. "'BLT' was written very quickly and is a standout track on the album," the band's bass player Peter Hook said in an interview. He added that wrote the song to open the second side of the Brotherhood album, which they wanted to be the "electric" side as opposed to Side 1, which was more acoustic and rock oriented. The band played this on the road long before they recorded it, tweaking it along the way. At various stages, the song was also called "Broken Promises" or "Broken Guitar Strings."
‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ has been critically acclaimed since its release. In a 30th anniversary retrospective citing the song as one of the greatest of all time, Billboard described it as a "synth-pop masterpiece" and "an incandescent jewel of mid-'80s computer love." NME praised the song as New Order's "finest pop moment" and credited its simplicity in comparison to previous singles such as ‘Blue Monday’. In 2004, the song was ranked No. 204 in Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time." In 2013, Stereogum ranked the song No. 2 on their list of the 10 greatest New Order songs, and in 2021, The Guardian ranked the song No. 7 on their list of the 30 greatest New Order songs.
The music video, which was released in November 1986, was directed by American artists Robert Longo and Gretchen Bender. It prominently featured shots of a man and a woman in business suits flying through the air as though propelled by trampolines; this is based directly on Longo's "Men in the Cities" series of lithographs. The video has a black and white cut-scene where Jodi Long and E. Max Frye are arguing about reincarnation, in which Long emphatically declares "I don't believe in reincarnation because I refuse to come back as a bug or as a rabbit!" Frye responds, "You know, you're a real 'up' person," before the song resumes. It also features clips that Gretchen would later use for her next project "Total Recall".
Label – Factory
Songwriters – Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Bernard Sumner
Producers – New Order
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]Every time I think of you
I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue
It's no problem of mine, but it's a problem I find
Living a life that I can't leave behind
There's no sense in telling me
The wisdom of the fool won't set you free
But that's the way that it goes and it's what nobody knows
Well, every day my confusion grows
[Chorus]
Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I'm waiting for that final moment
You say the words that I can't say
[Verse 2]
I feel fine and I feel good
I'm feeling like I never should
Whenever I get this way, I just don't know what to say
Why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday?
I'm not sure what this could mean
I don't think you're what you seem
I do admit to myself that if I hurt someone else
Then I'll never see just what we're meant to be
[Chorus]
Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I'm waiting for that final moment
You say the words that I can't say
Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I'm waiting for that final moment
You say the words that I can't say