Is there a hidden meaning in Blondie’s ‘Rapture’?
Most people, when thinking of major rap milestones, probably won’t immediately think of Blondie. But more than that, they probably won’t think of how much one of the band’s biggest moments also changed the way most people approached the entire structure of a song.
Before ‘Rapture’, rap was very much its own thing. It wasn’t a genre that was considered a part of mainstream culture, much less something spawned from the new wave music scene that boasted names like Blondie and Talking Heads. But what was especially important here wasn’t that Debbie Harry was trying to imitate some of her hip-hop favourites, it’s that she was capturing the entire feel of the whole genre with words that didn’t even make any sense.
Listening today, it makes just as little sense as it did back then. Harry breezes through the rap section with a litany of garbled nonsense, starting with “Fab Five Freddy” before talking about running from a “man from Mars eating cars”. Then, you become the man from Mars, eating “Cadillacs, Lincolns, too / Mercurys and Subaru”. It might sound like absolutely nothing, something she came up with one night after one too many, but what people thought was her mocking was actually her paying homage to the sounds, rhythms and lyrics she’d heard herself in New York’s bustling block parties.
Harry and Chris Stein both went to these kinds of parties a lot, and what endeared them to this particular community was that it felt like some sort of secret underbelly that never got radio play. She’d even said that ‘Rapture’ was the first song some of these rappers ever heard because before then, you’d only hear this music if you were to venture out into the city to find them. But it wasn’t just the fact that she brought rap into the mainstream. It was that she made it sound so strange that even people without a taste for it found themselves enjoying how it sounded.
Because, again, it was absolute nonsense, but the rhythm and melody were enticing and accessible enough to draw casual listeners in. There was also something in the words that felt important, like a comment on the broader, disjointed nature of society and the music industry. Lines like the direct references to Fred Brathwaite and DJ Grandmaster Flash called attention to some of the genre’s most obvious heroes. But as jumbled as some of the words seem, they also anchored something more dystopian, with a large, destructive figure who comes from outer space, destroys everything, then passes the torch onto you.
Pair this with the physical feeling of overcrowding in a club, and there’s a combination of claustrophobia and euphoria: “Toe to toe / Dancing very close / Barely breathing / Almost comatose / Wall to wall / People hypnotised / And they’re stepping lightly / Hang each night in Rapture.” But was the song intended to be a commentary on these things, or were all of these elements that came naturally when Harry decided to mimic the words and sounds she’d already heard?
Annoyingly, neither Harry nor Stein has ever really given much away when it comes to ‘Rapture’. But Harry did once say it was one she was most proud of, that and ‘Heart of Glass’. But if we’re to look at the latter, and how it came from a personal place, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume ‘Rapture’ might have as well. Only in this instance, it was her gazing outward, making history by recreating genius, rather than repurposing a general feeling about loss in love.
