As mentioned, part of the promotion around the release of New Order’s Brotherhood: The Definitive Edition was the second season of the excellent Transmissions podcast that tracks the history of the band through the “World In Motion” single. One of the choice tidbits was the origins of the “Touched By The Hand Of God” single, which while of the Brotherhood era, was a standalone single that would eventually be compiled on the 1994 Best Of collection.
They rounded off a triumphant year with one last single which was recorded for the movie Salvation by a director called Beth B.
Gillian Gilbert: “We had to write “Touched By The Hand Of God” for this film soundtrack ’cause she wanted a song. We’d already done some instrumental but she said, “No, I really need a song”, so we were like, this was at like 11:00 at night”.
With a deadline approaching, Peter Hook decided to boldly step forward into a new world. He put down his bass guitar, and approached the sequencer.
“I’m sure he had one hand in his pocket as though, ‘Any fool can play this’, you know, I think that was his attitude as well. But yeah, he did come up with a baseline for that, so he could do it on a bass sequencer”.
Transmissions Series 2, Episode 5: Substance
They also discussed the video for the song – which has just gotten a high-res remaster, again as part of the Brotherhood campaign and which I don’t think I’d ever seen before – which was directed by soon-to-be Hollywood A-lister Kathryn Bigelow.
With the song finished, there was the matter of another other music video to think about. And the band had a bright idea… and did I mention, there might have been some cocaine knocking about at this time.
Stephen Morris: “We wanted to do a heavy metal spoof we’d been around America and MTV was full of Whitesnake and Poison and fluffy hair, and it’s like would it be great ‘cuz that’s the last thing people would expect of us to do, a flamboyant rock video”.
Enter the picture, future Oscar winner Katherine Bigelow.
“I mean, she’d obviously suspected quite rightly that none of us could dance. And we did have to have choreography lessons, and we had to have people to dress us as glam metal rockers and Hooky just looked exactly the same, you couldn’t tell that he’d been styled in any way”.
Transmissions Series 2, Episode 5: Substance
Morris also discussed the making of the video in conversation with BrooklynVegan:
What do you remember about shooting “The Touched by the Hand of God” video? [Stephen starts laughing before I finish the question]
That was hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. We’d obviously been to America quite a lot and seen a lot of MTV. We were upset MTV didn’t play “Bizarre Love Triangle,” but we used to watch it all the time in the hope that they would. But all we ever saw was Whitesnake and Poison and all these fluffy haired metal bands being slightly misogynist, so we thought, “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if we did a video like that? Then it’s bound to get on MTV, because it fits right in.” Kathryn, she was quite puzzled by the idea. It was like, “Well, I don’t really know how to do a heavy metal video.” We turned on MTV. “Have you not seen any of this? Just like this.” We did have a choreographer. We had a choreographer and a costume designer who came to the rehearsal room at Cheetham Hill, and made us dress up, and we all looked completely different, apart from Hooky who looked almost the same, apart from he had a wig on.
He had his own leather already.
It was weird, wearing that stuff. Then after that, when the video got shown on MTV, people thought that we were actually like that, looked like a hard rock band. They didn’t get that we were trying to send up the genre. There’s always somebody who won’t get the joke, but that was the idea. It was a hoot. I remember it was freezing cold when we shot it. Gillian in particular caught a chill.
Where was it shot?
I think it was Brixton Academy in London. As for the outside stuff, oh God. Bill Paxton. Yeah. He’s in it as well, isn’t he?
Oh, he is? How have I never noticed that before.
Yeah, he’s in it. He’s a little bit in the middle, a vignette in the middle where there’s a guy running down the freeway. Yeah. Bill Paxton. We launched his career! [Laughs]
Well, I would say James Cameron probably launched his career, but yeah, but he and Kathryn Bigelow were an item at the time anyway, so …
That’s right. Yeah. That’s how she got him to do it.
New Order’s Stephen Morris talks ‘Brotherhood’ Definitive Edition, music videos, what’s next & more (BV interview)
Here’s the Transmissions episode, queued up to the relevant portion:
