I must be one of the few people in the world who has seen Blondie live on three occasions and never looked at their lovely lead singer. No, I’m not mad, but Clem Burke is my hero drummer, alongside Keith Moon, and that has always been my focus. Blondie was the first concert I ever went to in 1978 and I saw them again 21 years later when they made their comeback in 1999 and Debbie still sounded great at the age of 44 and Clem was still amazing. When they topped the chart with Maria, they achieved the rare feat of a band having UK number ones in three consecutive decades. Maria was as catchy as any Blondie hit in the late seventies or early eighties, but who exactly was she? Let’s see if we can find out.
Blondie formed in the summer 1974 after Debbie Harry and Chris Stein left their former band The Stilettos and recruited a guitarist, bass player and drummer and did two gigs under the moniker Angel and the Snake. The following year they held auditions for new members and recruited bass player Gary Valentine and drummer Clem Burke. They began performing the New York CBGB’s club and in order to enhance their sound then brought in keyboard player Jimmy Destri and in 1977 were supporting Iggy Pop and David Bowie. They signed a deal with Private Stock records and released a couple of singles. Later that year when Private Stock folded, they signed to Chrysalis records and opened their UK chart account with a cover of Randy & the Rainbows’ American hit Denise which Blondie retitled Denis (Denee) which reached number two in the spring of 1978. They had recorded their second hit (I’m Always Touched by Your) Presence Dear in 1977 which was written by Valentine, but he left the group before it was released. He was replaced by Frank Infante and the song reached number 10. During a 1978 tour, Infante switched to guitar and the British bass player Nigel Harrison completed the classic line up.
During 1979 and 1980, they achieved five UK number one hit including the theme for the film American Gigolo, Call Me. Their 1981 hit Rapture became the first American Billboard number one to feature rap in it. Their last top 20 hit was in May 1982 when Island of Lost Souls reached number 11. War Child stalled at number 39 and the band split up.
Deborah Harry launched a solo career and juggled it with nursing her partner, Chris Stein, back to full health. He had been ill for some time and much speculation was made about his mystery illness. The press talked about him being gay and had contracted AIDS. He’d lost so much weight that he looked like a skeleton. Chris was eventually diagnosed with pemphigus vulgaris, which is an autoimmune blistering disorder of the skin that causes the person to suffer from burn-like lesions all over their body. Clem Burke played with the Eurythmics, Jimmy Destri released an almost unnoticed solo album called Heart on A Wall and Nigel Harrison later joined Clem Burke in a new project called Chequered Past.
They reformed in 1999 as a foursome of Harry, Stein, Destri and Burke. They released the album No Exit, which reached number three on the album chart and set off on a UK tour. The press had their usual dig, that Debbie looked fat and worn. In fact, she looked really good and had only put on a little weight. On stage musically though, it was as if they had never been away.
The comeback single, Maria, was solely written by Destri whose real name is James Mollica as well as the next single, Nothing Is Real but the Girl and the album’s title track. He had also co-written the band’s previous hits Picture This and Atomic. Who exactly was Maria? She was nobody, she didn’t exist, Destri’s revelation as Maria was, “Simply about pimply desire, sex drive without a license. Steering without a wheel and all that shit.” In another interview, he explained that he wrote the song whilst “reflecting on his days in Catholic school, when he fantasised about meeting the ideal girl”, but not necessarily one called Maria. Realistically, it’s about teenage desire and how he saw it, in 2023, Destri explained to Kelly Scanlon, “I have a teenage daughter, and she’s pretty beautiful, and I watch all these boys gawk at her. I put myself in their shoes, thinking about what I used to do with girls back then.” The opening line sets the scene, ‘She moves like she don’t care, smooth as silk, cool as air.’ He sees his desire and describes his feelings, ‘And your heart beats like a subway train, ooh, it makes you wanna die.’ The passion and desire build with the chorus exploding, ‘Maria, you’ve gotta see her, go insane and out of your mind. Latina, Ave Maria, a million and one candle lights.’ In the same interview, he added, “I wasn’t a very forward guy at all; I was like from afar, and I’d go home and write a poem about her, I was really a sad little bastard. It sounds cute, but you don’t get any attention that way. So, Maria is about desire, and the whole idea of using the Ave Maria thing is a way of saying she’s on a pedestal; she’s almost holy. It’s not a religious thing at all, I don’t believe in religion, really.”
On Blondie’s 1980 album Autoamerican, the fifth song on side two was a track called Walk Like Me which had been solely written by Destri and included the lyric, ‘he’s like a millionaire, walking on imported air’ the same line he included in the bridge of Maria. The public loved it and gave Blondie their sixth and final UK number one, some 19 years after their last.
Not too many Blondie songs come up in karaoke, “This may seem like a great Karaoke choice, but it’s more challenging to sing than many people think,” noted Debbie Harry, “It has undone many a karaoke singer. And me.”