Today’s first half is lifted from a posting back in May 2016:-
New Order had released a belter of a debut single in Ceremony. The follow-up hit the shops in September 1981:-
mp3 : New Order – Procession
It was quite similar to a number of the tracks on the debut LP Movement and it wasn’t a huge shift away from the Joy Division sound albeit it did highlight that with Bernard Sumner was a completely different sort of vocalist from Ian Curtis.
I bought the only copy of this single that my local record shop had and it came in a cardboard sleeve with a strange green design which I thought alluded to the title of the b-side. I soon discovered that it had been released in nine different coloured sleeves (as illustrated above) and while I wanted to own every single one of them, there was no way an 18-year-old student, who that month had just started university, was going to waste valuable vodka money on something as unworthy as a 7″ bit of plastic.
The b-side was a precursor to what New Order would become within a few months – a band of their own right delivering electronic dance-music.
mp3 : New Order – Everything’s Gone Green
This is ripped right from vinyl folks and is a bit shorter than the versions generally available on compilation LPs, so please forgive the fact that there’s also a wee skip and a jump about 3mins in…..
Second Half
In December 1981, Factory Benelux would release a 12″ version of Everything’s Gone Green, backed by two completely new tracks. This merely added to the mystique of the original release with some considering it was a double-A single. The import was ridiculously expensive compared to other 12″ singles of the day, but I still went for it. It was later re=released in 1985 and again in 1986, but I have the original with the solid gray/white label, blue type, and cat number of FBNL 8.
I’ve included all these images as the labeling caused confusion for years. The track names of the B-sides are correctly identified on the label, but, if you look at the sleeve, they are the wrong way round. This would lead to their being misidentified on subsequent releases; for example, the track identified as “Mesh” on the CD version of the Substance CD compilation is in fact “Cries and Whispers”.
mp3 : New Order – Everything’s Gone Green (12″ version)
mp3 : New Order – Cries and Whispers
mp3 : New Order – Mesh
Two hugely enjoyable and much underrated b-sides no matter what name they were given! And better than some of the cuts that were included on Movement.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
I thought ‘Ceremony’ was a fantastic single, but still Joy Division. ‘Everything’s Gone Green’ was when I believed they were their own band. I couldn’t have imagined at the time what they were to become, and hopefully concentrating on this series will bring back something of that voyage of discovery.
I thought Ceremony was a majestic debut.
Procession is in the same vein although not quite as good.
I really love Bernard Summer’s guitar playing on these early tracks. Very lean and spare, melodic and atmospheric.
For a very long time Everything’s Gone Green vied for top spot in my rating of the New Order Canon. It has so many exciting layers to it and another example of the Bass of God moments which Hooky was so capable of. And that whoop! by Barney is not to be missed.
Cries and Whispers and Mesh are among the best b-sides New Order has ever produced.
The 12″ version of EGG is the one, the exact moment rock met dance. From Hooky’s bass and Stephen’s drum intro onwards. Amazing record. Procession is an overlooked beauty.
Hadn’t heard the 2 Benelux B-sides before. Cries And Whispers is outstanding – could probably have been a single in its own right.
Growing up in apartheid era South Africa, I bought a lot of my records via mail order from the UK. Like you my copy of the single had the green version of the cover. Makes me wonder if they did a run of green and released smaller more limited amounts of the other colours.