You Teasing Like You Do

Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind

Blondie Heart Of Glass is, as you know dear reader, a wonderful, wonderous, wandering thing of beauty, a perfect tangle of analogue and synthetic, vulnerability and toughness, coolness and concern; the effortless-sounding track that took 3 years to make. I quite like it.

In 2018 Numero Group released Heart Of Glass, a 6-track 12″ which charted the evolution of the international career-making hit that used to be known variously as ‘Pain In The Ass’, ‘Once I Had A Love’ and ‘The Disco Song’.

Very sensibly the magisterial long version of ‘Heart Of Glass’ (5:57 of it) kicks off proceedings here and basically music doesn’t get much better than this. That Kraftwerk/Moroder beat glimpsed in a hazy neon-lit reflection in a Bowery sidewalk puddle, is just perfect. I love how the lyrics tales of heartache and break-ups gets shrugged off by Debbie Harry’s icy delivery, who needs emotion when you can dance?

The travails and consequences of this triumph are laid down perfectly in the insert with Heart Of Glass – replicated here for you non-owners. It’s interesting that many of the synth swoops and noises were actually set down by Chris Stein’s guitar, which you can hear in the interesting/interminable ‘Basic Track’ preserved here. The Shep Pettibone mix from 1988 adds some clicks and disco chords but nothing of any lasting value or interest.

Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass

Flipping the sucker over takes us back to Blondie’s earliest demos as we work our way through ‘The Disco Song’s ill-advised reggae calypso incarnation and ‘Once I Had A Love’, which sounds brittle and uptight but entertainingly so. It’s a good advert for producers in general and Mike Chapman in particular; meticulous Aussies rule, it would seem.

Ultimately, however interesting all this aural archaeology might be it just fades to irrelevance compared to the finished project. For some reason I imagine this is what St Peter will be listening to at the pearly gates when I rock up to collect my free harp and library card.

In between what I find is pleasing and I'm feeling fine
Love is so confusing there's no peace of mind
If I fear I'm losing you it's just no good
You teasing like you do

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Numero Group, as they can always be relied upon to do have put together a sumptuous, multi-layered treat of a record here. The peep-hole* sleeve leads to a printed plastic cover, enclosing a satisfying slab of vinyl. Everything just oozes quality, as well it should.

Ooh, oh, ooh, oh
Ooh, oh, ooh, oh

1212 Down.

*oh come on, ‘die-cut’ never excited anyone!