(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Fri 9 January 2026 20:22, UK
Making a return to recorded music after 17 years is no easy feat. Culture is an ever-changing beast, and particularly in music, the gap in trends that 17 years can present is pretty seismic. But nevertheless, Blondie took that challenge on in 1999 with their record No Exit.
Timed to perfection, the lead single entered the charts just as the band were wrapping up a European tour and so planting a flag in the ground that announced this bold new era, but 1999 was far different from 1979, a year when their new-wave sound could slip through the cracks of the decade’s established genres.
In ‘Maria’, they had a song that perfectly blended the past and present, because it had a hook that was ready-made for the charts, while showcasing the grungy yet poppy rock sound that Blondie of old built a legacy on. To the initiated Blondie fans, it was unsurprising to hear that the track was penned by keyboardist Jimmy Destri, the man also responsible for ‘Atomic’, ‘Picture This’, ‘Nothing is Real but the Girl’, and ‘No Exit’.
But in the latter stages of their career, subject inspiration had to be sourced from a completely different avenue. Rather than mining the personal experiences of his own love life, Destri looked to his daughter and observed the heightened feelings of adolescent lust.
When asked about the inspiration, Destri said, “Teenage desire, because I have a teenage daughter and she’s pretty beautiful and I watch all these boys gawk at her.” He continued, “I put myself in their shoes, thinking about what I used to do with girls back then. I wasn’t a very forward guy at all. I was like from afar, and I’d go home and write a poem about her – I was really a sad little bastard.”
Adding, “It sounds cute, but you don’t get any attention that way. So ‘Maria’ is about desire, and the whole idea of using the Ave Maria thing is a way of saying she’s on a pedestal, she’s almost holy. It’s not a religious thing at all, I don’t believe in religion really.”
But that wasn’t the only way the track inspired a backwards-facing view of adolescence. No, for the band’s iconic lead vocalist, Debbie Harry, that powerful chorus line of ‘Maria’ was a reminder of just how stretched her vocal cords are as the leader of this band.
Harry soars on the finished version of the track and even more so during live performances of it, but she was quick to remind fans and critics just how difficult a note it is to hold. As ‘Maria’ grew in popularity and became a karaoke favourite the world over, Harry sharply reminded fans, “It has undone many a karaoke singer. And me.”
Nevertheless, ‘Maria’ remained a mainstay in the band’s setlist for many years after its release. It was a pure representation of the modern rock sound that typified their revival, and Harry’s vocal performance was at the very forefront of that.
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