INFO
length (album version): 4:50, 5:36 & 6:33 [depending on edition]
written by: Chris Stein & Deborah Harry
produced by: Mike Chapman
saxophone: Tom Scott
released: January 1981
highest Billboard album rock chart position: #35
highest Billboard hot 100 chart position: #1
highest Billboard hot dance club play chart position: #8
highest Billboard pop chart position: #1
highest Billboard R&B chart position: #33
highest UK singles chart position: #5
(sheet music)
FEATURED ON
Autoamerican [album] (1980)
No Exit [album] (1999)
Live In Toronto [live album] (2006)
Live By Request [live album] (2004)
The Curse Of Blondie [album] (2003)
Livid/Live [live album] (2000)
Remixed Remade Remodeled [remix album] (July 18, 1995)
Beautiful - The Remix Album [remix album] (1995)
Once More Into The Bleach [remix album] (1988)
Rapture Riders [single] (2005)
Heart Of Glass (remix) [single] (1995)
Rapture (remix) [single] (1994)
Denis (the '88 remix) [single] (1988)
Heart Of Glass [single] (1988)
Rapture [single] (1980)
The Tide Is High [single] (1980)
REMIXES & OTHER VERSIONS
■ dub version
■ Guru's Fly Party mix (4:11)
■ Guru's Fly Party instrumental (4:11)
■ K-Klassic instrumental (7:15)
■ K-Klassic mix (remixed by k-klass) (7:07)
■ K-Klassic radio mix (4:20)
■ long version (aka album version) (6:33)
■ original single version (aka 7" version aka short version) (4:57)
■ Phactory beats (4:22)
■ Pharmacy dub (6:00)
■ Blondie vs The Doors (single edit) (3:50)
■ Blondie vs The Doors (full version) (5:41)
■ special disco mix (aka original disco mix aka disco mix aka extended version) (recorded at United Western Studio, Hollywood in 1980) (10:02)
■ Teddy Riley And Gene Griffin remix (aka The Teddy Riley remix) (6:58)
■ Teddy Riley And Gene Griffin remix - bonus beats
■ US disco version (7:13)
MUSIC VIDEOS
Rapture Riders (Blondie vs The Doors)
Rapture/Maria/No Exit medley
images
Rapture
directed by: Keef
produced by: Keefco
images |
|
RAPTURE
Toe to toe dancing very close body breathing almost comatose wall to wall people hypnotized and they're stepping lightly hang each night in rapture
Back to back sacroiliac spineless movement and a wild attack face to face sightless solitude and it's finger popping twenty four hour shopping in rapture
Fab Five Freddy told me everybody's fly D.J. spinning I said my my flash is fast flash is cool Francois c'est pas flashe non due and you don't stop sure shot go out to the parking lot and you get in your car and drive real far and you drive all night and then you see a light and it comes right down and it lands on the ground and out comes the man from Mars and you try to run but he's got a gun and he shoots you dead and he eats your head and then you're in the man from Mars you go out at night eating cars you eat Cadillacs Lincolns too Mercurys and Subaru and you don't stop you keep on eating cars then when there's no more cars you go out at night and eat up bars where the people meet face to face dance cheek to cheek one to one man to man dance toe to toe don't move too slow 'cause the man from Mars is through with cars he's eating bars yeah wall to wall door to door hall to hall he's gonna eat 'em all rapture be pure take a tour through the sewer don't strain your brain paint a train you'll be singing in the rain said don't stop to the punk rock
Well now you see what you wanna be just have your party on T.V. 'Cause the man from Mars won't eat up bars where the T.V's on and now he's gone back up to space where he won't have a hassle with the human race and you hip hop and you don't stop just blast off sure shot 'cause the man from Mars stopped eating cars and eating bars and now he only eats guitars get up |
COMMENTS
source: wikipedia.org
March 1, 2004 - interview with Tim Blanks
Chris Stein: Even doing a song like 'Rapture' in rap was not so much about getting street credibility as it was being excited about rap when we first encountered it.
quoted from the book 'Deborah Harry: Platinum Blonde - A Portrait By Cathay Che' - 1999
question: Then, which is the sexiest [song]?
answer: Sexy probably would be "Rapture."
-
question: 'Rapture' was the first number one rap song. How was that received at the time - did anyone accuse you of cultural appropriation?
answer: Yeah, there were some rumblings about it at the time, and what I learned then [about the press] is that since everyone has to say something about it, everything will be said - good, bad and in between. That was my big discovery.
question: How did that song come about?
answer: These graffiti artists - like Freddie, Futura and Lee, who had just ventured into CBGB's. Suddenly, there was this other area of crossover, and we were initiated into the rap world. So Chris [Stein] just said, I'm going to write a rap song. At that time, it was all the Sugarhill Gang and they were just ripping off Chic and using those tracks behind their raps. There was no real original music for rap, so Chris just created his crossover format and that was that.
source: wikipedia.org
"It was the first Hip-Hop song to ever reach number one in the world, and although it never made the top spot in the UK, is still a famous song to this day, and one of Blondie's most well known.
The song consists of a series of somewhat nonsense rhymes until the listener is told that they follow a light and discover a UFO, whose occupant, the Man From Mars, kills them and eats their head. The listener is now part of the Man from Mars as he proceeds to eat various enormous objects including automobiles, until there aren't any more cars left. Then the Man from Mars proceeds to eat bars (except ones where the TV is on), then later switches to eating guitars.
In 2006 'Rapture' was fused with The Doors' 'Riders on the Storm' into 'Rapture Riders' by Go Home Productions. This unofficial remix was later approved to be included on Blondie's 'Greatest Hits: Sound & Vision' and was a top ten hit on the U.S. hot dance club play chart." |
