Debbie Harry does not (and never will) see herself as a legend: “Preposterous”
Debbie Harry has done many things to earn the coveted “legend” title.
She was one of the most definitive women to pioneer new wave, unknowingly becoming one of the biggest feminist advocates in the entire scene. She also reinvented the meaning of the word resilient and took risks not even her male counterparts would have considered. And yet, legendary is a label she’s never identified with.
“Rock and roll is a real masculine business and I think it’s time girls did something in it,” she told New York Rocker in 1976. This was the same era that would effectively shun any woman in a band, or, god forbid, any woman fronting a band.
Patti Smith once put it sufficiently when she said, “In the early ’70s, when I started playing rock and roll, there weren’t a lot of girls taking an aggressive stance, playing feedback, you know. I had trouble recruiting guitarists to play with me. They’d come in, see it was with a girl, and just leave.”
For Harry, a lot of these moments were easier to turn a blind eye to if you focused on what it was you were doing, and fortunately for her, the energy brewing on the sidelines of the entity that was Blondie was big and authentic enough to give them a platform. Though that didn’t stop the underlying sexism following them everywhere they went, in the minds and from the mouths of those who couldn’t see any use for a woman centre-stage other than to satisfy their own self-indulgent gaze.
But this was also arguably just an irritating byproduct of being one of the best bands on the planet. From day one, Blondie wasn’t about following any trends, and even the moments when they did repurpose old tropes came with a certain edge that felt more daring and accomplished than imitative. Like walking the tightrope was more a means to generate raw energy and hype than the fear of failing, because if they didn’t try, it didn’t matter anyway. It’s the same feeling that came with other CBGB acts like Talking Heads: it felt delicate at times because it was a thrill, one that had purpose even in moments it wasn’t entirely sure of itself.
And while many fought hard to reinstate the traditional elements of rock, new wave leaders like Blondie did everything they could to be its antithesis, celebrating everything from disco and pop to even hip-hop as a means to shatter boundaries and free crowds from the restrictive nature of convention. At the helm, Harry became a pariah of explosive sensibilities, towering as the opposite of what everybody expected at that specific moment in time.
Still, she doesn’t consider herself an icon. Writing in her memoir Face It, she said the first time she heard the term attached to her name, she thought it was “preposterous”, noting, “I was having business problems, I was having money problems, I was having every type of problem that everybody else has. I was eking, scratching along, trying to keep interest in my music business going. I guess I could say eking because this career has not been a big float on a boat of success. It’s been up and down, up and down. I guess you have to learn to live with that, that you’re determined, and if this is what you do and who you are, maybe that is what makes you an icon.”
Her reasons make complete sense for anyone who’s ever been stuck in the weeds of a creative project, bogged down by all the challenges and frustrations of making it work without thinking about how it might land among outsiders. We can enjoy Blondie as external listeners, celebrating everything she’s done for music without ever knowing the extent of her experiences. But maybe this disconnect is what cements her position as an icon even more: there’s a mystique there that we’ll never truly understand.
