The Perfect Kiss
Directed by	Jonathan Demme
Produced by	Michael Shamberg
Starring	New Order
Music by	New Order
Cinematography	Henri Alekan
Edited by	Tony Lawson
Production company	Factory Films
Distributed by	Palace Pictures
Release date	Sept 1985
Running time	11 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

"The Perfect Kiss" is a song by the English alternative dance and rock band New Order. It was recorded at Britannia Row Studios in London and released on 13 May 1985. It is the first New Order song to be included on a studio album, Low-Life, at the same time as its release as a single. The vinyl version has Factory catalogue number FAC 123 and the video has the opposite number, FAC 321.

While widely regarded as a centrepiece of New Order's catalogue, "The Perfect Kiss" reached only #46 in the UK charts.

The song's themes include love "We believe in a land of love" and death "the perfect kiss is the kiss of death". The overall meaning of the song is unclear to its writer today. In an interview with GQ Magazine Bernard Sumner said "I haven't a clue what this is about." He agreed with the interviewer that his best known lyric is in the song: "Pretending not to see his gun/I said, 'Let's go out and have some fun'". The lyrics, he added, came about after the band was visiting a man's house in the United States who showed his guns under his bed before they went out for an enjoyable night. It had been quickly written, recorded and mixed without sleep before the band went on tour in Australia.

The song's complex arrangement includes a number of instruments and methods not normally used by New Order. For example, a bridge features frogs croaking melodically. The band reportedly included them because Morris loved the effect and was looking for any excuse to use it. At the end of the track, the faint bleating of a (synthesized) sheep can be heard. Sheep samples would reappear in later New Order singles "Fine Time" and "Ruined in a Day".

Despite being a fan favourite, the song was not performed live between 1993 and 2006 due to the complexity of converting the programs from the E-mu Emulator to the new Roland synthesizer. However, it returned to the live set at a performance in Athens on 3 June 2006.

The Peter Saville sleeve is uniform silver with the word "perfect" embossed on the front side and "kiss The" on the back, like a wraparound band. It was about this time that the photographer Geoff Power [see "Shellshock"] was introduced to Peter Saville. So enamoured was Peter by Geoff's work that he originally offered the photographer the cover to Low-Life. Then when that fell through, they worked on a cover for "The Perfect Kiss" using one of Geoff's photographs, which can be seen later in New Order's songbook, 'X'. With time running out and Peter's decision not to run with this image - it didn't fit in Peter's subsequent portraits of the band on Low-Life - Geoff was offered an OMD album cover instead. Geoff decided to use the image for the New Order release, Shellshock, a year later.

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