Of all the ways a band might happen upon a massive, career-defining hit, “grasping at straws” doesn’t seem to be the likeliest one. Yet, that’s precisely what the members of Blondie were doing during an initial meeting with a new producer, Mike Chapman, whom they hired to work on their third album. Blondie showed Chapman the songs they already had for the record, and rather than picking one as the future hit, Chapman asked the question no band wants to hear: “Have you got anything else?”
Blondie had already put its best foot forward with the songs the band presented to Chapman. Unsurprisingly, as frontwoman Debbie Harry would later recall, they were “sheepish” when they brought up one more song they had in their back pocket. It was a throwaway track, one of the first that the band ever wrote together. Despite its longevity in the group, Blondie never quite knew how to approach it. “We’d tried it as a ballad, as reggae, but it never quite worked,” Harry told The Guardian in 2013.
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“At that point, it had no title. We just called it the ‘disco song,’” she continued. The disco song, as it were, was the one Chapman was waiting for. The group started diving into the track, developing it further with the help of a Roland drum machine, until it became the iconic cut we know today as “Heart of Glass”.
Blondie’s Mega-Hit “Heart of Glass” Was Divisive Among the Band
While “Heart of Glass” is now synonymous with Blondie, prior to its 1979 release, Blondie was a guitar-forward punk rock band out of New York City. They were gritty and grunge and a far, leather-clad cry away from the sparkly disco that was gaining popularity in the latter half of the decade. “Heart of Glass” was undoubtedly a shuffle step in that direction, and the band’s diehard punk fans weren’t having it. “People got nervous and angry about us bringing different influences into rock,” Debbie Harry said. “Lots of people were mad at us for ‘going disco.’”
Even though Blondie had already dipped its toes in disco via covers of “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer and “Lady Marmalade” by Labelle, presenting an original disco track was too much for some folks. That included members of the band, too. “Clem Burke, our drummer, refused to play the song live at first,” Harry remembered. “When it became a hit, he said, ‘I guess I’ll have to.’”
And indeed he did. “Heart of Glass” was Blondie’s first international hit, topping the charts in the States, U.K., Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, and Austria. It also reached the top ten in many other countries, including Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, South Africa, Norway, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Chris Stein, guitarist and songwriter who came up with the “heart of glass” line, told The Guardian, “I never had an inkling it would be such a big hit or become the song we’d be most remembered for. It’s very gratifying.”
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