The Blondie Lyric That Took a Breakup With a Grain of Salt

Blondie was already an underground sensation, but they needed a hit. That they did so with a song whose lyrics seemed to shrug off the end of a love affair with an air of resignation only solidified the band’s coolness factor, even as they rose to the top of the charts.

The song in question was “Heart of Glass,” which propelled the band into the mainstream in a major way. Considering the song was bouncing around in the band’s hopper for several years before they recorded it, it’s a good thing they stuck with it.

Have a “Heart”

In 1974, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein put together a track that consisted of some chord changes and a simple rhythmic bed. His inspiration when writing it was “Rock the Boat” by The Hues Corporation, which was one of the first big hits in the nascent R&B offshoot known as disco.

When it came to the lyrics, Blondie’s lead singer Debbie Harry delivered her take on a breakup song, one which, as she explained in Marc Myers’ book Anatomy of a Song, took a kind of existential tone about the sadness of it all:

“The words I came up with expressed a very high school kind of thing—falling in and out of love and getting your feelings hurt. But instead of dwelling on the pain, the words sort of shrugged off the breakup, like, ‘Oh, well, that’s the way it goes.’”

Harry’s words turned what was known as “The Disco Song” into “Once I Had a Love.” Cut to 1978, and Blondie, after two albums which gained them a devoted East Coast following, wanted to break through in the national singles market. Producer Michael Chapman was brought in to help them achieve just that.

Chapman heard the promise in “Once I Had a Love,” but he suggested changing Harry’s original complaint that the love was a pain in the ass into “Heart of Glass,” a phrase suggested by Stein. He and the band then went through a painstaking recording process to get just the right melding of disco shimmer and rock heft. The end result was a runaway No. 1, the first of four the band would score in the U.S.

Examining the Lyrics of “Heart of Glass”

Debbie Harry’s succinct assessment of her faded love sets the tone for “Heart of Glass”: Once I had a love and it was a gas / Soon turned out had a heart of glass. There’s a string of pessimism running through the lyrics, that nothing should be taken at face value, at least not till time provides the proof: Seemed like the real thing, only to find / Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind.

“Heart of Glass” also suggests that fate can turn on a dime: Once I had a love and it was divine / Soon found out I was losing my mind. Harry’s vocals are crucial to the song’s interpretation. By lending them a dreamy air of nonchalance, she suggests dwelling too much on the injustices of love is pointless. Better to accept it all and move on.

That feeling is expressed in the middle eight sections of the song. Love is so confusing, there’s no peace of mind, she sings. If I fear I’m losing you, it’s just no good. She later claims she was, Lost inside / Adorable illusion. But she doesn’t sound too downtrodden about the missed opportunity: We coulda made it cruising.

Many rock acts tried their hand at disco, some with predictably clumsy results. But Blondie has always sounded smooth when trying on different musical cloaks, as they’d later prove with new wave, reggae, and even hip-hop elements working their way into their hit songs. With “Heart of Glass,” they effortlessly took to the dance floor without cracking their tough New York City shell.

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