Blondie was a phenomenon.
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The band, which is still releasing new work today, featured the beautiful frontwoman Debbie Harry. They were one of the first mainstream bands to embrace rap music in the early ’80s and the group released a myriad of classic hits like “Heart of Glass,” “One Way or Another” and “Call Me.”
Harry was an individual. She was never afraid to speak her mind and she’s remained an icon in American music ever since landing on the scene in the late ’70s and early ’80s.
Here, we will dive into what the now-77-year-old Florida-born, New York City-raised artist had to say about life, her craft, love, and the world around here.
Here are the best 31 Debbie Harry quotes.
1. “Being hot never hurts!”
2. “I have a lot of regrets, but I’m not going to think of them as regrets.”
3. “I’m a culture vulture, and I just want to experience it all.”
4. “Music does not carry you along. You have to carry it along strictly by your ability to really just focus on that little small kernel of emotion or story.”
5. “The only person I really believe in is me.”
6. “I thought I’d live to a ripe old age, because I always felt there was a lot to do. I had a driven feeling. I always thought in the present.”
7. “I guess people assume I have some sort of totally magical life, but I’m a working musician, fortunately. I’ve worked on my craft, and I’m very fortunate I’ve been able to survive in a very competitive industry and enjoy my success. It’s not easy.”
8. “The word ‘iconic’ is used too frequently—an icon is a statue carved in wood. It was shocking at first when I got that reference. It was a responsibility, and it’s impossible to live up to—you’re supposed to be dead, for one thing.”
9. “I could be a housewife… I guess I’ve vacuumed a couple of times.”
10. “New York has always been a city of change and a city about change, and it is a back-leading development. Nobody’s going to want to come to New York if it looks like another strip mall.”
11. “And I wasn’t convinced that I was the most talented person in the world.”
12. “Music is wonderful. Especially if there’s some kind of content to it.”
13. “We wanted to enjoy what we were doing and we had business things we had to straighten out and personnel problems and it sort of took a little time to do it.”
14. “I always work on New Year’s Eve, no matter what.”
15. “If I were to do a foundation, it would be to promote solar energy. And I’m worried about drilling for oil. I think it is harming the earth, ‘cos it drains the layer of oil under the surface, and that could be causing earthquakes. It’s like we’re giving the earth arthritis. I don’t know if that sounds crazy.”
16. “It’s amazing to me to see how bands evolve and how they take all their influences and come up with their own sound.”
17. “Music has its own emotional embodiment. It carries an emotion with it. When you associate a lyric with the music, it’s much easier; but when you’re standing there completely dry in front of the camera with no musical background, just a fine-tuned, get-this-emotional-story across, it’s a very, very intense kind of focus.”
18. “I don’t mind if my skull ends up on a shelf as long as it’s got my name on it.”
19. “You always fall for the rascal or the guy who’s got a little bit of the devil in him. You can’t help it.”
20. “Lately I’ve been believing that music predates speech.”
21. “I love the ACLU and I’m concerned now, especially when it comes to our rights, with current politics and the religious community and the Conservative majority or minority—I don’t know who they are.”
22. “We probably, as primitive people, made music before we actually had a language, and that’s where language comes from.”
23. “And living in a metropolitan area which is ethnically diverse, our lives are very complicated, so our emotional experiences are going to be varied like that.”
24. “Capote wrote every day. He said that’s the only way, you have to sit down every day and do it.”
25. “I think it’s a Blondie tradition that all of our albums sort of have a wide spread of styles.”
26. “But, you know, the issues of humanity and what is fair treatment and good treatment of a fellow human being should not really be based on a personal sense of right and wrong or judgment.”
27. “That was the impetus for me to do music or art because I knew if I didn’t try when I was young, then I would get to be in my 40s and I’d be really unhappy that I hadn’t.”
28. “I do know the effect that music still has on me—I’m completely vulnerable to it. I’m seduced by it.”
29. “I always say the new album is the best one yet. I always feel that—I really do, because it’s the latest and it’s the newest and it’s a little bit better.”
30. “I feel like I have to have a voice.”
31. “I really, really like writing songs.”
Photo by Shig Ikeda / Shore Fire Media
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