In his history of CBGB, music writer Roman Kozak described this event: "When Blondie played for the Johnny Blitz benefit in May, 1978, they surprised everyone with a rendition of Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love'. A notable example of this type of musical experimentation occurred when Blondie covered Donna Summer's " I Feel Love" at the Blitz Benefit on May 7, 1978. that's the kind of stuff that I want to do". In an interview published in the February 4, 1978, edition of NME, Debbie Harry expressed her affinity for the Euro disco music of Giorgio Moroder, stating that "It's commercial, but it's good, it says something. Bassist Gary Valentine noted that the set list for early Blondie shows often included disco hits such as "Honey Bee" or "My Imagination". As a band, Blondie had experimented with disco before, both in the predecessors to "Heart of Glass" and in live cover songs that the band played at shows. On other occasions, Chapman has credited Harry with the idea. On some occasions, the producer Mike Chapman has stated that he convinced Harry and Stein to give the song a disco twist. At the end, he said: 'Have you got anything else?' We sheepishly said: 'Well, there is this old one.' He liked it – he thought it was fascinating and started to pull it into focus." Įxactly who decided to give the song a more pronounced disco vibe is subject to differing recollections. They were just a plaintive moan about lost love." It was only when the band met with producer Mike Chapman to start work on Parallel Lines that Harry recalled Chapman "asked us to play all the songs we had. We'd tried it as a ballad, as reggae, but it never quite worked", and that "the lyrics weren't about anyone. Harry said that "'Heart of Glass' was one of the first songs Blondie wrote, but it was years before we recorded it properly. The song was re-recorded in a second demo with the same title in 1978, when the song was made a bit more pop-oriented. This original version was inspired by The Hues Corporation's hit disco song " Rock the Boat" (1974). For this reason the band referred to it as "The Disco Song". The song had a slower, funkier sound with a basic disco beat. This earlier version was initially recorded as a demo in 1975. ĭebbie Harry and Chris Stein wrote an early version of "Heart of Glass", called "Once I Had a Love", in 1974–75. In August 2020, Harry and Stein sold the rights to the song, as one of 197 Blondie songs, to investment fund company Hipgnosis Songs Fund. In 2018, "Heart of Glass" ranked at number 66 in the UK's official list of biggest selling singles of all-time, with sales of 1.32 million copies. Slant Magazine placed it at number 42 on their list of the greatest dance songs of all time and Pitchfork named it the 18th best song of the 1970s. It was ranked at number 259 when the list was updated in April 2010. In December 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the song number 255 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It was featured on the band's third studio album, Parallel Lines (1978), and was released as the album's third single in January 1979 and reached number one on the charts in several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. " Heart of Glass" is a song by the American new wave band Blondie, written by singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein.