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I thought being Deborah Harry would be cinch.. Singing songs, looking designer chic, running all over and through Soho, having perfect hair and make-up...who wouldn't want that? To this day, I still aspire for perfect make-up! My God, my cream conditioners!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe these will inspire some insipid Millennial, or younger, to better themselves!
Hey, it cannot hurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Debbie Harry is my idol, my inspiration, the one entertainer who single-handedly got me through adolescence, coming out, adulthood, and now (heaven help me) late middle age. I've worshiped and adored her since hearing the first Blondie single "X-Offender" in 1976 (imported from UK, because nobody cared yet in the States). My best friend since childhood was heavily into the underground rock scene, so I have him to thank for tipping me off to the divine Deborah two years before anyone else in NYC (aside from stoners in CBGB) knew of her existence.
We used to attend the annual huge home stereo equipment expo at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. At the 1977 expo, Harman Kardon (for reasons we could never fathom) was obsessed with Blondie's second album "Plastic Letters" (which again sank without a trace in America). They used it as their demo music all three days of the expo, while a very early "projection TV" displayed the several ahead-of-their-time videos the band made to promote the album on British TV. Mind you, this was five years before anyone thought of inventing MTV. Debbie was immortalized at her most glamorous, in videos for "Denis", "In The Flesh" etc. Several years later, after "Heart Of Glass" hit and finally made Blondie a sensation, Debbie reverted to a more "soft-punk" style with shorter hair and funkier outfits.
After 1997, quality of her output declined: all the solo and new Blondie albums consistently bombed without a trace. Admittedly, about half of the songs really are rather dreadful, because she got fixated on hip-hop. But every album always has at least one or two incredibly good throwbacks to Blondie's late-'70s peak. I've been sitting on what appears to be the final Blondie album "Pollinator" since its release exactly two years ago, holding it unplayed, in reserve for when I might desperately need a new Debbie fix.
Our girl held on and looked FABULOUS for decades: as recently as five years ago I was floored that she seemed no older than 45 during a TV interview. But I noticed in last month's rockumentary "Punk" that Father Time has finally caught up with her: still well put together in that timeless NYC style, but not quite the siren of yore. Can you believe she celebrates her 74th birthday this coming July 1st?!?! Good lord, it seems only yesterday I was stunned to realize she was 64. She'd better make it to 110, because I can't imagine living in a world without her in it.
I'd always hoped her friend John Waters would license Blondie's "Rip Her To Shreds" for one of his Divine opuses, but alas it never happened. Would have been so perfect as Mink Stole, Cookie Mueller and Susan Walsh strutted down a filthy alley:
You know her
Would you look at that hair
Yeah, you know her
Check out those shoes
She looks like she stepped out
The middle of somebody's cruise.
She looks like the Sunday Comics
Hey hey she thinks she's Brenda Starr
Her nosejob is real atomic
All she needs is an ermine scarf...
Darling,
Had no idea you were so big on
Deborah. You have taste. Every
so often I wish for those youthful
days, when I had the energy to think
I could be Deborah!
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