True Faith works on many levels. You can listen to it, you can dance to it, you can watch the very interesting video, and come away with something a little different each time.
The song itself is about heroin addiction. From Wikipedia:
As is the case for many New Order songs, the words in the title do not appear anywhere in the lyrics.
The song is about heroin addiction. This is more obvious in the original lyrics, which contain the line, “They’re all taking drugs with me,” in place of, “They’re afraid of what they see.” The line was changed at the last minute due to pressure from label executives, but the original line is often used when the band performs the song live.
The band was surprised by the fact that the single widened their audience with younger children, because the video’s characters were reminiscent of children’s programming, even though the real theme of the song is adult.
And from SongMeanings:
this is from the songwriter, Bernard Sumner himself, during an interview for Q magazine in 1999.
“(True Faith) is about drug dependency. 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. There’s a line in the song, ‘When I was a very young boy, very young boys played with me/Now we’ve grown up together, they’re afraid of what they see.” The original was, ‘Now they’re taking drugs with me,’ but Stephen Hague our producer made us change it because he said it wouldn’t be a hit if we kept that line in. He was right. It was a very big hit, but we chickened out. I change it back sometimes live.”
Personally, I dig it because it’s a good song. It does have a good beat; you can dance to it, but it’s also very listenable, like most of New Order’s best songs.
And of course, the lyrics:
I feel so extraordinary
Something’s got a hold on me
I’ve got this feeling I’m in motion
A sudden sense of liberty
I don’t care ‘cos I’m not there
And I don’t care if I’m here tomorrow
Again and again I’ve taken too much
Of the thing that costs you too much
*I used to think that the day would never come
I’d see the light in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost replaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun
When I was a very small boy
Very small boys talked to me
Now that we’ve grown up together
They’re afraid of what they see
That’s the price that we all pay
Our valued destiny comes to nothing
I can’t tell you where we’re going
I guess there’s just no way of knowing
(* repeat)
I feel so extraordinary
Something’s got a hold on me
I’ve got this feeling I’m in motion
A sudden sense of liberty
The chances are we’ve gone too far
You took my time and you took my money
Now I feel you’ve left me standing
In a world that’s so demanding
(* repeat)
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