Synopsis

New Order abandon their usual cool, understated image for a deliberately exaggerated glam-metal fantasy. Wearing long wigs, leather outfits, and theatrical makeup, the band performs the song with mock-rock-star intensity, complete with exaggerated poses and stage gestures. Their performance is intercut with a melodramatic storyline involving a couple, a car, and escalating romantic and violent behavior. The contrast between the band's detached electronic music and the visual language of 1980s hair-metal videos creates the clip's central joke.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was conceived as a parody of the glam-metal style that dominated MTV in the late 1980s. The idea grew from the band's exposure to American music television while touring the United States.

• New Order's manager, Rob Gretton, proposed the concept. The video takes aim at the familiar visual cliches of hair-metal promotion: huge hairstyles, leather clothing, melodramatic romance, aggressive posing, and supposedly spontaneous rock-star sexuality.

• The band members reportedly needed choreography lessons for the performance. Stephen Morris later recalled that the experience was especially funny because none of them were natural dancers.

• Peter Hook identified Mötley Crue as one of the influences behind the spoof, particularly the kind of imagery associated with the band's "Girls, Girls, Girls" period.

• The clip features actors Bill Paxton and Femi Gardiner. Paxton appears in the storyline as a violent man, while Gardiner is credited as the car driver.

• "Touched by the Hand of God" was originally recorded for the 1987 film "Salvation!" rather than for a regular New Order studio album. The single was released in December 1987, with "Touched by the Hand of Dub" on the B-side.

• The video was issued on Factory Records' promotional VHS release for the single. Its exaggerated hair-metal imagery has since made it one of New Order's most recognizable and frequently revisited videos.