In '' New Order Music 1981 – 89 '' , the band 's lyricist Bernard Sumner writes a tongue-in-cheek account of the song 's lyrics that relate it to the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy . Sumner facetiously theorises that Kennedy arranged for Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot his wife so that " J.F. could do one with M. Monroe " . Monroe commits suicide when Oswald hits the wrong target ( in reality , Marilyn Monroe died in 1962 , over a year before the assassination took place ) and Oswald is later shot by his boss ( implied to be Jack Ruby , who in reality killed Oswald in retaliation for Kennedy 's death ) for " doing such a bad job and causing his hit-man business to go bust . " The producer Stephen Hague has referred to the song as " the only song about domestic violence that you can dance to . " The original 1987 version ended in a fade-out while repeating the last line of the outro , " I will always feel free " . The " 94 album mix " , also included on the international edition of '' ( The Best of ) New Order '' as " 1963-94 " , had all new orchestration and is similar in structure to the original version , except that the outro is removed and replaced with a repeat of the final bridge and chorus , faded out . The 1995 Arthur Baker remix restores the original outro , and , instead of fading out , has a cold ending after four repeats of the last line
1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
1963 (song)