2
Dec 08
BLONDIE – “The Tide Is High”
Horns pitched to sound like strings; strings played low and swinging like horns; a pot-pourri of roughly Caribbean percussion – instrumentally, “The Tide Is High” is delightful escapism. Even so it’s a little bit of a let-down. Debbie Harry gives a gentle, intimate performance, but gentle intimacy isn’t really what you go to Debbie Harry for. Once she savaged her rivals and dismissed her lovers, now she’s playing a long game – with supreme and justified confidence, of course, but the woozy, flippant Blondie on show here lack the flash and fire of previous encounters. “Tide” is a postcard from a band on holiday, something to cheer up a dreary Autumn: the holiday just ended up a little longer than anyone thought at the time.
6
Discussion of the Atomic Kitan version is prohibited by the Atomic Bunny.
I think it’s interesting that this song – which as people have said even in its original version isn’t THAT amazing – keeps getting revived and versioned. There must be something about the sentiment and central hook that people reach for.
It’s easy, it’s familiar, that’s it.
I think it’s the Blondie version that keeps getting revived and versioned isn’t it? Musically referencing hip and iconic 80s sounds means a lot more to a contemporary audience than The Paragons do. It’s not the song, it’s Blondie.
I could be wrong, never having heard any of these newer versions.
Uhhh I think it is slightly more likely that dancehall/reggae-affiliated artists like Kardinal Offishall would be using The Paragons as their reference point rather than Blondie!
Thanks for that link Lex – it’s refreshing to hear it’s soothing qualities used as a counterpoint to the energy of the shouty man.
Well I said I could be wrong. I’m old, cut me some slack. I’ve never even heard Atomic Kitten’s version.
#34 I would imagine that Kardinal Offishal is i. well aware of the Paragons’ version, and ii. also well aware that the Blondie version was an absolutely enormous mega-hit. So the question isn’t ‘which is he versioning’, but “would be be doing so without the other one (whichever that it)”.
Re: 34 – possibly, maybe even probably, but not necessarily. After all, Blondie were massive everywhere, and the Paragons – terrific as they were, not. On the other hand, there is an early (great) DJ version by U Roy, so Kardinall Offishall is far from the first to set his rasping against that tune.
This is surely Blondie on the slide (I may be summarising what everyone else has posted).
Obviously their worst (first time round) #1, this was an odd one. Two years earlier they’d have got away with it, but Two Tone had brought a lot of ska and other reggae styles to the airwaves, so the Paragons’ infinitely superior version was familiar to many.
I always had the opinion this was bought by Blondie fans rather than pop fans. I didn’t buy it although I had bought all four of their earlier #1s (got sick of “Call Me” pretty damn quick tho’)
A quality control lapse, or the beginning of the end??
Possibly both.
The live version of this showed Debbie singing one note for the entire chorus. It was the kiss of death for them and certainly the beginning of the end
@ Billy Smart # 26:
I love ‘War Child’. Last gasp of the group, and the best song off ‘The Hunter’ by a mile.
Don’t get the criticism for TiH on here. Yes, it’s lightweight reggae, yes, it doesn’t have the muscle of their previous hits. But they were trying to adapt to survive in the especially harsh environment of the rapidly changing new wave scene. On first listening you can hear that this is a guaranteed number one hit; it’s catchy, it’s fluffy, it’s exactly what it should be to go straight to the top of the charts, which is exactly what it did in both the UK and US. Ok, it’s not Blondie gold, but it is Blondie silver, which makes it better than 90% of music both then and now (cliche alert?). Sure, they were scratching around for ideas, and ‘Automerican’ proved they were crumbling creatively, but they were also looking for a way to finance their drug habits, and hits were the way to do it. TiH sits on a best of Blondie perfectly well along with all the more meaty songs. Sure it’s a bit of fluff, but at this point Blondie were easily as good as The Police… at least until the album came out. Besides, six months after this single came out Adam and the Ants were Kings and everybody else looked old-fashioned; Debbie made the piss poor album ‘Koo-Koo’, which meant two duff albums in a row; by the time ‘The Hunter’ album came out, it was strike three-you’re out. At least on a musical level it was; the group had a lot of personal issues to sort out, but if the public ever cared, they had given up by the time of The Hunter.
My big issue with this song has more to do with the music we hear; I constantly find myself wondering just how much of it is played by the band, and how much is played by session musicians?
On Blondie singles referencing (however indirectly or obliquely) I far preferred and prefer “Island of Lost Souls”: This (and indeed, even that) is just rather too ordinary for a group that had proved themselves capable of very much better.
referencing “the sea” I meant…
re Rapture – it occurs to me that Lana Del Rey was taking notes…
…and American Life era Madge.
Critic watch:
Bruce Pollock (USA) – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000 (2005)
Dave Marsh & Kevin Stein (USA) – The 40 Best of the Top 40 Singles by Year (1981) 21
Paul Morley (UK) – Words and Music, 210 Greatest Pop Singles of All Time (2003)
Toby Creswell (Australia) – 1001 Songs (2005)
Giannis Petridis (Greece) – 2004 of the Best Songs of the Century (2003)
And it’s goodbye John Holt of the Paragons, writer of this song. Not to be confused with John Holt, Professor of Experimental Physics at Liverpool University in the 1970s (and for some time before) who lectured on Special Relativity to first year undergrads in an alarmingly tedious manner (he lived on until 2009 though, apparently).
# 48 – Yep, it’s clear that poor old Holty didn’t make it through the night…
Blame Erithian for that one, the little tinker!