Prescribed barbiturates for his poorly controlled epilepsy, Curtis was hospitalised following an overdose 6 weeks before his death. He self-discharged the next day to front the band at a chaotic gig. Curtis’s last show at Birmingham University, 2 weeks before his suicide, was featured posthumously on the Joy Division album Still; the song Isolation is notable for the following lyrics: ‘I’m ashamed of the things I’ve been put through, I’m ashamed of the person I am’. Curtis’s band mates, however, felt his lyrics did not reflect his state of mind. Curtis had already told his wife that his life’s ambition to release one album and one single had been fulfilled, and that he wanted to leave the band and ‘join a circus’.