The 10 songs that define Debbie Harry

Posted On July 1, 2025July 1, 2025

Debbie Harry is probably one of the most misunderstood frontwomen in history. Not just because Blondie emerged from the same pool that many deem “punk”, but because her upbringing and attitude towards music were something not many shared at the time. Maybe that’s because, growing up, she didn’t really have any female idols to show her the way.

Nevertheless, she carved her own path, taking demeaning or derogatory tropes as nothing more than an old mindset, rather than something to take as gospel, viewing the role of the frontwoman as the ultimate symbol of empowerment and liberation. But she knew this only because she felt it deep in her bones, finding inspiration from the limited space around her to become the one thing she had always wanted when she was younger.

“A persona gave me freedom, a world of my own,” she once said. “You pick a character that you love, and then it becomes you.” But becoming a force in the face of the male gaze wasn’t a well-thought-out pathway all of the time. Sometimes, it was just what she felt inside, her primal instinct coming to the surface on stage in ways that felt like a conscious mix of traditional femininity and something far less easily explainable.

“It’s animal instincts,” she explained, “I can’t define it more than that, but I know that exists for me.” Thus, on her 80th birthday, it only feels natural to celebrate the woman who, against all odds, became an impossible force of rock by going by her heart and feeling her way through, even when it quite literally went against everything the genre celebrated at the time. Because, after all, that’s where real magic emerges; from places unexpected, like a guiding light when people are turned the other way.

Songs that define Debbie Harry:

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