The song Blondie wrote about “the weirdness of human nature”
By 1979, Debbie Harry, the frontwoman of Blondie, had solidified her reputation as a prominent punk icon, effortlessly blending striking beauty, audacious fashion choices, and her signature bleached-blonde hair. Her feature on the covers of numerous influential magazines not only bolstered her status but also cemented her as a sex symbol – an appellation that would endure throughout her entire career.
Being a figure of allure, for the most part, was never something Harry was uncomfortable with. “I never felt compelled to hide my sexuality,” she said in 2014. Her more overt feminist tendencies crept in, however, when she became drawn to the idea of rebellion. “It was thrilling,” she admits, “And I foolishly thought that nothing would really touch me”.
When Blondie released Eat to the Beat in 1979, Harry was in the deep throes of the confident sexual figure she had curated, with a fourth new album that continued the band’s pop-rock trajectory. However, despite enjoying the attention to a point – Harry was starting to face the realities of such shallow pressures, and the anxieties facing appearance and ageing started to settle in.
‘Die Young Stay Pretty’ features on the album as a testament to Harry’s feelings towards the media and its obsession with eternal beauty. The media often highlighted Harry’s stark “feline” features and plump, enticing lips alongside her other physical attributes. In interviews, it was expected that this would be a main talking point rather than the band or its music.
Therefore, when she wrote ‘Die Young Stay Pretty’, the issue with such ideological confines started to plague her mind with worry. “I sort of felt [the song had] a couple of different meanings,” she told Mojo. “I mean, the value placed on beauty as being such a commodity and the only way to be eternally young was to die young and stay in people’s minds. It’s just the weirdness of human nature.”
Deciphering such qualms from the lyrics is not a challenging venture. In fact, when Harry sings, “Are you waiting for the reaper to arrive? /Or just to die by the hand of love?” the criticism is clear: women in the music industry are desirable when they’re young and in their prime, whereas their male counterparts often become more attractive and respectable with age.
Harry likens beauty to something fickle and fleeting, a “tragedy within your own dream”, something that all women are unavoidably susceptible to. It speaks volumes about the treatment of women in the industry, showing that oftentimes, these artists’ appearances go hand in hand with their musical contributions. Harry was often foremost the focus of the male gaze, and her music and achievements came second.
This shows no signs of stopping, either. When Blondie took to the stage at this year’s Glastonbury, it seemed that many older fans were expecting a young Harry circa 1970s to appear. When she arrived, she faced criticism from viewers over her appearance, which fed into backlash about the performance’s quality itself.
It just goes to show that Harry’s adage rings true in the fact that expectations are often one-dimensional and, soon enough, fans do well to “leave only the best behind”.
