Elegia is the fifth track of New Order's Low-Life. It is an instrumental. The song is iconic for its moody synthesizers juxtaposed with guitars. It is also the only New Order song in a waltz time, specifically 12/8. Elegia is Latin and Greek for elegy.
The song, like Procession, while being heavily rumoured to be about the late Ian Curtis, is not intended to be. Though Elegia's instrumentation is extremely similar to that of songs like Decades.
The song on the album is only five minutes, though the full song is seventeen.
It's not known when exactly it was revealed that Elegia was 17 minutes long but it was first released fully on Retro's limited edition bonus disc in 2002. And later to Low-Life CD and digital releases in 2008, 2012 and 2022.
In 2012, a bootleg of the song as a 12" single came out, with many fans believing it's real. Its B-sides were 586 and The Him. 586 also being an extremely long song (albeit 10 minutes shorter than Elegia) and The Him being another song commonly thought of as being in memory of Ian Curtis.
Elegia has appeared in several films, TV shows and trailers. Notably including the movie Pretty In Pink, which also features the songs Shellshock and Thieves Like Us.