New Order - 1963

JUL 01 1995 · 12:00

New Order - 1963 (1995) Director: Gina Birch Era: Post-Britpop / Mid-90s Alternative Resurgence (1995) - Period of UK indie consolidation and retro single reissues; New Order mines back catalogue during hiatus-adjacent phase High curatorial value as a rare example of a feminist post-punk musician (Gina Birch, Raincoats) directing a major-label mainstream video, fusing art-film sensibility with pop infrastructure. The video's character-driven realism, minimal effects, and deliberate visual-lyrical disconnect make it an exemplary case study in auteur music video direction. Tier elevated by historical rarity of Birch's directorial work and by the song's enduring canonical status in the New Order discography. Context: Released in January 1995 as a standalone single, '1963' was originally a 1987 B-side to 'True Faith' elevated to A-side status via an Arthur Baker remix during New Order's semi-hiatus period. The video arrives during a moment of UK cultural ferment, Britpop at its commercial zenith, but the video pointedly sidesteps that movement's laddish iconography entirely. Director Gina Birch, rooted in the feminist post-punk underground via the Raincoats, brings a quiet, art-school-inflected sensibility: a single female protagonist navigating countryside and city in a journey that echoes British social realism traditions. The song's dark lyrical subject, framed by Bernard Sumner as a tongue-in-cheek JFK assassination conspiracy told from Jackie Kennedy's perspective, finds no literal translation in the visuals, a deliberate artistic choice that aligns with the anti-illustrative ethos of New Order's video history. Director notes: The 1963 music video (1995) was directed by Birch and produced by Michael H. Shamberg, accompanying the Arthur Baker Radio remix released as a single in January 1995 on London Records. Per Wikipedia and IMDb, the video depicts actress Jane Horrocks waking up in a box in the countryside and walking to the city, a narrative vignette entirely disconnected from the song's JFK-conspiracy lyrical content. The video reflects Birch's film-school-trained, character-study approach to the music video form. IMDb rates the video 7.4/10.