Regret Lyrics
Maybe I've forgotten the name and the address
Of everyone I've ever known, it's nothing I regret
Save it for another day, it's the school exam
The kids have run away
[Chorus 1]
I would like a place I could call my own
Have a conversation on the telephone
Wake up every day, that would be a start
I would not complain of my wounded heart
I was upset, you see, almost all the time
You used to be a stranger, now you are mine
[Verse 2]
I wouldn't even trust you, I've not got much to give
We're dealing in the limits, and we don't know who with
You may think that I'm out of hand, that I'm naive, I'll understand
On this occasion it's not true
Look at me, I'm not you
[Chorus 2]
I would like a place I could call my own
Have a conversation on the telephone
Wake up every day, that would be a start
I would not complain of my wounded heart
I was a short fuse burning all the time
You were a complete stranger, now you are mine
About
“Regret” is New Order’s last top 5 hit in the UK and highest-charting song in the US. Former band member Peter Hook calls it “the last good New Order song.” In 2010, Pitchfork ranked it as the #34 best song of the 90s. The guitar used in it was Johnny Marr’s ‘59 Les Paul.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
Johnny Marr of the Smiths told Guitar Magazine in 1997:
Another main recording guitar is my ‘59 Les Paul – just as you’d expect, an amazing guitar. I used that a lot on Strangeways … and The The’s Dusk album. My other Les Paul is a mid-'80s one with a Bigsby retro-fitted; that’s the one I used on 'How Soon Is Now?’ … I also used a Fender Pro a lot – that was also on a lot of the early Smiths records … You can hear the Pro really well on New Order’s ‘Regret’. Bernard (Sumner) borrowed my Les Paul and Pro for that, so he owes me some money as well.
Graphic designer, Peter Saville told The Observer:
I was broke after the recession and it made me look more critically at the world. I’d picked up a copy of Richard Prince’s Spiritual America at the Walker art museum in Minneapolis. It made me appreciate how strange contemporary America really was. Later I spent a month in Los Angeles – and there was something about the experience that was like the end of the world. There’s nowhere further to drift, it’s the terminal beach where the western world washes up. It was the first time I did a New Order cover listening to the record – I wrote down everything that came into my mind. I wrote ‘cowboys’ for Regret because of the way it rolled. And cowboys referenced Richard Prince and the Marlboro Man on Sunset Boulevard. Juxtaposed imagery blending into something molten, the way you might see the world if you were hallucinating.