The Blondie song written about Nancy Spungen and the “menacing” punk scene
By 1977, Blondie had won the favour of David Bowie and Iggy Pop but not the heart and minds of the general public. After signing to Private Stock Records and releasing their self-titled debut in 1976, the downtown NYC outfit travelled to the UK, where they opened for Bowie in 1977, British punk’s year zero. In the October of that year, The Damned released ‘New Rose’, the UK’s first punk single, marking the rebirth of British youth culture after a decade of decline. Soon afterwards, the world was introduced to Malcolm McLaren’s totally rotten pop group, The Sex Pistols, who were immortalised after the murder of Nancy Spungen by her boyfriend, the bassist Sid Vicious.
Sid and Nancy were inseparable from the moment they met. According to McLaren, Nancy served as Sid’s guide to New York’s seedy underbelly, introducing him to the lifestyle of the New York rocker with all its sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. In the August of 1978, they moved into the infamous Chelsea Hotel. On the night of October 11th, a handful of guests watched on as Sid swallowed 30 tabs of the powerful barbiturate Tuinal and remained comatose until the early hours of October 12th. At around 7.30 that morning, moans were heard coming from Sid and Nancy’s room by other hotel guests. Vicious went to the front desk to ask someone to help Nancy, who was at that point lying with a knife in her stomach, bleeding to death on the bathroom floor.
For a time, the 20-year-old’s death was all the press could talk about. In life, she’d been reviled by the other members of the Pistols, so much so that they managed to get her banned from the group’s 1978 US tour. The media were equally unwelcoming, with most publications painting her as a sort of No Future Yoko constantly high in amphetamines. For Debbie Harry, who knew a thing or two about the music industry’s uneasy relationship with non-conformist women, Spungen was yet more evidence of the media’s desire to simultaneously celebrate and destroy the women it covered. “Yeah, she’s so dull,” Harry snarls, impersonating tabloid writers, “Come on, rip her to shreds.”
During a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Debbie Harry spoke about the meaning of ‘Rip Her To Shreds’, which many assume is solely about Spungen. As it turns out, the song’s scope is far wider than that, with the singer later clarifying that it was written about the way the entertainment industry treats its female stars. “It’s so dirty and menacing,” she said. “It’s what we all do when we’re getting catty – that’s what the New York scene was like. There’s toughness, but a lot of affection as well. It’s like being roasted.”
