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From: freewilly1990
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  • Funny when I first heard this in 1980 I thought it was Davy Jones! When they said  Blondie I bought the album and wore this track out. Lots of white memories with this album.

  • The Intro.: Mechanical, cold.... The song: "The door swings open / And it's cold outside."

  • Someone actually said they didn't like this!! Stop injecting drugs intended kill brain cells!!!!! Patty Smith and Blondie ruled!!!!

  • Blondie got me through the late 70's and 80's. Thanks Debbie and the entire group. You guy's will always rock!

  • Yeah, after the intro, the song just opens into something really special and great. I got this album as a young kiddo in the 80's and I still think of this track more than any other.

  • good beat

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  • Autoamerican was my all-time favorite album during college. Eventually Eat to the Beat took over that position. I think both are masterpieces.

  • Never understood the intro, but the song is haunting and has stuck with me for 30 years!

  • @jimkris

    I quote David Byrne "Stop making sense!" Sometimes art makes no sense at all...but that intro...I love it as much as the rest of the song!

  • This was my favorite song on Autoamerican. I loved the album cover.

  • I'd forgotten just how good this album this. Dug out the ole CD and cranked it up!

  • I was so excited to hear this song on the intercom in the supermarket a couple of days ago! Brought a little class to City Market!!! (Written by Laura Davis & keyboard player Jimmy Destri).

  • Very favorite Blondie tune like ever :-D

  • again jus another fantastic tune from blondie, if u wasnt there, u dont know:)

  • Autoamerican was not one of their best albums but 'Angels' is definitely a wonderful song, maybe one of their best. Long live Blondie!!

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  • Thanks for posting this. A great album, & actually this is my favorite track (I go in for the obscure ones LOL)

  • Just beautiful. I would love to have heard The Smiths do a cover.

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  • This song makes me want to bump lines

  • My all time fave! Best Blondie album ever!! Great art work too

  • This song is unbelievably amazing! Don't get the start cutting out though.

  • @blairt1998 I always wondered that too

  • See the last guy on the end? I'm going on ebay to look for whilte jeans, not!

  • @Pandaemonium1969 why not.what r u wearing today thats any better?

    do u follow or do u lead?

  • Love that old cover pic. I miss it and my self. B L O N D I E is soo hot!

  • Great album, great picture, great song, great voice, GREAT BAND.

  • Loved this and T-Birds on this album

  • @Darkeye66 that was great T birds!!!memories:)there new album is good mind but i know what u mean....

  • I love this song.. all of Auto American. Any one dig the song "Faces" ?

  • One of my all time faves.I'm so glad she always concentrated more on singing for us instead of puting on a "show" Her voice is her instument.She brings something different to each song. Most female singers would'nt know how to experiment with their voice...it's second nature to Deborah.The Panic stuff is proof of Blondies talents.

  • Debbie Harry will always be the angel of our balconies...

  • Best track, but not from the Best LP

  • When I bought this as a 15 year old boy this track has haunted me all my life...still good today.

  • @malcstag i was around 5 when i heard this, and feel the same way. it has haunted me too! awesome song!!

  • I always thought that this song was about the end of the world, with the sky opening up and angels descending from the heavens. The weird sound effects at the beginning and creepy lyrics throughout the song symbolize this.As a small kid I had an active imagination, and pictured large angels in robes with glowing eyes holding swords, one of which was perched on a balcony, while people ran screaming and trying to hide lol...Pretty scary :-]

  • Best track from their best Lp

  • complex album at the time of release for critics. always enjoyed the entire album as well as this song.

  • probably my favourite blondie track, ever. i can't put my finger on it, i just know that I love this song, still, and I got the album the week it was released.

  • @j4kn1f3 i agree, one of their best if not the best

  • Love this song! I always thought "Angels on the Balcony" should have been the opening single from Autoamerican. Debbie is the Angel on the balcony...see the album's cover!

    Listen to "Angels on the Balcony" in a darkened room, just before bedtime. Close your eyes and tell me Debbie isn't in your head!.....and hopefully your dreams.....LOL!

  • denk,jy,echt,it,s,my,life,wil,­je,alleen,blyven,wonen,altyd,i­k,niet,lang,genoeg,alleen,ik,h­oef,niet,meteen,samen,te,wonen­,wel,jou,[of]word,het,niets,om­dat,jy,kiest,voor,altyd,alleee­n,wonen,moet,ik,vryheid,krygen­,iemand,te,vinden,die,denkt,op­,myn,lyn,ik,ben,ook,voorzichti­ger,verstandiger,ik,wil,wel,we­ten,waar,ik,mee,af,ben,is,eerl­yk,ook,voor,my,zie,gisteren

  • They play this at my work. lol

  • "They can still see him, sing'n on the corner singing a song that never fades away...." Always my favorite part of the song. I like the way the music totally changes during that part of the song. Almost like two songs in one. Long live Deborah Harry and Blondie.

  • @jamesschender Strange you should say this as I hadn't heard this for years and still the lryics came straight back to me. Must have faded into me as a kid....LOL.

  • very depressing song :(,i ll never hear it again

  • Very nice song! But whats with the creepy music in the beginning?

  • @WhoAmI4631 I was told that this song is about a dream of lonely

    teenage girl seeking friends/fame, and that the beginnning is the

    REM...rapid eye movement...of sleep during a dream.

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  • @superbulldog81 I always thought the song was about a woman who's husband has died and she can still see his ghost

  • One person should have his ears examined. Then he could move to Mars and take Justin Bieber with him.

  • Grande este grupo,esta cancion es bonita,esta cancion tiene dos partes,pero igualmente bonitas.Ya no se hace musica como esta.Te transporta a otro tiempo,otra dimension.

  • me emociona mucho este tema, es tan bello.

  • more talented than madonna? haaa surely you jest!  her voice on this song puts me in a trance...this and X Offender, Sunday Girl are my favourites.

  • This great song by Blondie sounds like Debbie is experiencing

    a dream.

  • This is my favorite Blondie song and my favorite Blondie album. Definitely creepy and weird, which is why I like Blondie in the first place. YAY!

  • fantasticofreneticus

  • Great "songs never fade away, fade into the kids that come along". i'm one of thoese kids!!!!

  • Pure powerpop genius of Jimmy Destri. This and T-Birds are my two faves from Autoamerican.

  • Dont get me wrong, I love my new bands, hard metal to easy going. But there will NEVER be bands like Blondie again !! She ROCKS !! & The band members do to !!

  • This has always been my fav Blondie tune!!!

    :)

  • One of the best album covers of all time. Period.

  • I can see U2 or REM or some similar band covering this song.

  • Ah 1980. This was one of my favorites on this album.

  • A Angel! ;-)

  • why was this never a single release

  • @tattyhead63 I hear ya- in an ideal world, it would've been a smash single. Great Euro-pop song!

  • Love this song, I remember buying auto American the day it came out and thinking this was one of the best songs on it

  • Such a wonderful song. . . I get chills.

  • yeah, timeless - lovin' it ;)

  • hehe,got this album for Xmas that year,man it makes me feel old,but man the songs still sound great :)

  • @bonus10000 1980 wasnt it ? This was released not long before; either Nov or Dec as i remember buying a copy of Melody Maker with reviews of the new albums including this,Sound Affects by the The Jam and Double Fantasy by John Lennon ; must have been November i think

  • @kenfig Speaking of John Lennon I remember reading somewhere that Debbie Harry was supposed to meet up with him for lunch or a meeting either on the day he got assassinated or some time after. I just can't remember where I had read that. Maybe in their Making Tracks book, not sure. 

  • @kenfig I bought Autoamerican and Double Fantasy the same day- must've been round Oct. (or Nov.) 1980 as both had just been released.

  • @crapple009 Yeah i think Nov as i read the Christmas releases in Melody Maker along with The Jam's 'Sound Affects' with part of the article i remember saying "Weller is still only 22" !! ha ha ; SUCH a long time ago ; even Lennon was still alive, just.Funny how MEMORIES dont age though ; they stay intact the further away they get ; strange.Agree with your choices as theyre my favourites from the album too ; a lot of it was TOO Pop for me

  • @kenfig Love The Jam as well. Sound Affects was actually the first Jam lp I bought.

    Autoamerican has aged very well- a very cool and ambitious work of art. Wish I could say the same about The Hunter, though it does have a few infectuous songs (like Jimmy Destri's bouncy "Danceaway").

  • @crapple009 Neither are my favourites of the artists personally ; i like 'Setting Sons' best from 1979 and 'Parallel Lines' for Blondie i suppose, although there are some great tracks on 'Eat To The Beat' and i also like 'Plastic Letters'

  • Timeless

  • I still can't decide which is my favorite Blondie song of all time.....Angels on the Balcony or Slow Motion?

  • Im only 27 but i remember my mom had the original LP and like most of you the album cover was something I never forgot...Hope the dumbass who stole most of our stuff that weekend at least treats this with a bit of respect!!!!

  • "angels on the balcony" is one of my favourite songs from Blondie, it is a master piece!

  • the synths on these are so early 80s I almost can't handle it!! love blondie!

  • so far ahead of their time

  • this is an extraordinari song... we must remember ,bands keep it rockin', but blondie makes it roll.

    chapeau!!!

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  • so beautiful x

  • I LOVE this picture (cover art of Autoamerican).

  • Does anyone know what the beginning of this is supposed to mean or symbolize?

  • @just1967me  a dream?

  • Good question, I have always wondered about that too.

  • @just1967me It reminds me exactly of the ending of Strawberry Fields Forever, the same effect. Some would call it avant- garde, perhaps.

  • One of my favourites and definately underappreciated track, no single release and haven't seen this in any compilations or live recordings either. Did they even play this live ?

  • @shagriml they did play this song live. there's a video here on youtube from 2004 where they play it on tour

  • There's an awful lot of people out there who will not be acquainted with this album track. I feel so sorry for them.

  • Awesome music and lyrics!!!!

  • The reason why I love Blondie is the variety of material they produced and weren't frightened to experiment with different genres. I've really grown to like Autoamerican thanks to gems like this track. Sounds a bit Scandinavian/German to me for some reason, it's my favourite of the entire album.

  • @JohnnyTheWolfLupino Definitely sounds Euro-pop!

  • @crapple009 I hope you didn't mean "Italo-Disco" when you said "Euro-Pop"? What is Euro-Pop anyway? Can you give an example? Thanks.

  • @doetim Euro-pop was a term used quite bit by U.S. music writers to describe this exact type of music, especially back in those heady days of the late 70's/ early 80's. In fact the very first time I heard Heart Of Glass on the radio in early 1979, I could've sworn it was by a European group as it sounded unlike your typical American one. Hence the term, "Euro-pop".

  • I don' t think "Autoamerican" was one of their best album. I do like it more than I like "Hunter" though.

  • It seems that the goal of "Autoamerican" was to explore as many musical styles as possible as well achieve a hit single. Based on that, the album was very sucesfull. I recall from a radio interview at about the time the album was released that the band did not want the album to sound like a Blondie album. To me, every one of the first six studio albums, '76-'82, is a classic, including Autoamerican and Hunter.

  • @EdiblePlanets

    Successful or not, I like the first albums better.

    "Sandinista!" by The Clash is one of my faves though, and the aim of that was similar, I suppose.

  • Mike Chapman, the producer, described AutoAmerican as Blondie's Sergeant Pepper. Along with The Hunter, it gets less favourable mention than the pop of Parallel Lines. Sunday Girl and such like doesn't compare with Angels On The Balcony.

  • @karlvorderman Had not heard that before but it makes a lot of sense - - full orchestra, different styles (jazz, rap, disco, new wave, country all in one album). In many ways this album was the artistic and commercial apex for the band. 1981 followed with 2 hit singles (of AutoAmerican), the solo album, the first "best of" , Debbie on every TV show, almost getting the James Bond theme. Then one more album and tour and it was over . . for a while.

  • @karlvorderman I always referred to it as their White Album, as there were so many different styles on it.

  • to you lady gaga and gwen stefani fans debbie was first and debbie was better!

  • @hemislammer1966 here.. here...someone with my own heart...she didnt need to dress sexy to sell her music she just had it!! eat your heart out madge,kylie,ga ga and all the rest..!!

  • i agree w you guys - but she (debbie) had a good band, too. they were good songs, written by people, not synthed together from a machine.

  • Lady GaGa, Kylie, and Madge aren't fit to be Debbie's roadies.

  • my favourite track of auto

  • slight 'carpenters' bit in middle, lots going on to prove they were versitile. Bring back memories

  • Absolutely awsome...one of their very best along side accidents never happen.

  • @MrHodgeheg123 love x-offender too when these songs are mentioned to friends they have not got a clue !!!

  • Happy New Year

    Debbie!

  • loved this song when the album was released many years ago...thankyou

  • Blondie have always 'done' it for me and this is debbie at her purest and most melodic - one of my all time faves

  • Brilliant! Top notch stuff - love the way Autoamerican has loads of different styles of music yet still works as a whole.

  • This song is often my all time favorite Blondie song. It changes from time to time but I usually go back to it as my #1 Blondie song. It's beautiful!

  • tera1320 cyberpunk extrodinaire!!!!

    This song is just right at night on Vinyl.

    With the right person from not too long ago at all, as far as I'm concerned.

    I'm sure her favorite ice cream is : Cookies and Cream.

    Butter Pecan is also great, with Kellog's Corn Flakes crushed on top.

    Some like flava one, some flavour two.

    Another is Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Flavor : Rain Forest Crunch.

  • huh?

  • Other than The Smiths, my favorite band of all time. deborah harry is so much more interesting, talented, and versatile than madonna and the rest. She is a true artist.

  • Cool, the Smiths are my favourite band too, and Blondie is one of my all-time favourites.

    I just discovered the song ''Scenery'', it could have been played by Marr (who is a great Blondie fan, btw), more or less.

  • Didn't know that about Marr..Have you ever seen Morrissey perform? I have..twice, best concerts I've ever been to.

  • No, I will surely go the next time he's in Holland. And anytime Marr comes with The Cribs or Modest mouse or the Healers I will surely go, too.

    He called Blondie one of the few hit bands who were really original, or something like that (I fully agree of course). And that they came at the right time for him, because there wasn't that much music in the charts he could relate to.

  • @truecancer Yeah, why even use them in the same sentence. it's like comparing Katy Perry to Ella Fitzgerald.

  • @BrickLaneBetty Lol..yeah, totally right.

  • @truecancer you have excellent taste, i must say, truecancer!

    nowadays, you just wanna 'hang the DJ'. *chortle* :)

  • @jas22 thanks..there's not many of "us" left...:-)

  • The best track on Autoamerican. There are a number of tracks on this album that didn't get the airtime they deserved. Still love Blondie!

  • It's too bad this song didn't get the respect it so rightfully deserved! This song is more than an album filler. It's one of the best songs on the "Autoamerican" album!

  • Been a Blondie fan since 1979 and this song is brilliant !

  • its funny to watch my 3 year old clap and dance and shake her head to blondie music cause she dosen't do it to any other music but blondie i must get a video of her cause its pretty funny

    oh yeah cool song from a cool band

  • Well its obvious your 3 year old has great taste in music.

  • You have a very cool kid! Rock it, girl!

  • @cz858habs Apparently when I was that age (definitely pre-Blondie), I was allegedly only satiated by Shirley Bassey...

  • This is my favorite blondie song of all time. It's their best work or one of.

  • really, phlange0phace? you dont like the chorus - debbie going "ahhhhhh" over that nice guitar riff? the song is nicely crafted. the guitar solo is great, with what sounds like a cartoon hyena in the background. i always adored this song and shared it with countless non-blondieheads over the many years. all have enjoyed it.

  • @jas22 One is forced to admit that Deborah is one of the few who can sing a line all on one note, and make it sound like a melody.

  • true, platinumMic. but what gets me on this song is really the music - its creepy, a little old school goth, maybe (not on purpose - thats my perception), but still so beautiful, and groovin' (ie 'its got a good beat/you can dance to it'!).

    anyone hear the new stuff from 'panic of girls'? i caught a couple songs online, taken from a little known cable show, i think (never heard of it, and forgot its name). they were pretty good songs.

  • @jas22 If you truly pay attention to the lyrics, you will understand the contrast with what you describe as the "gothic" sound. The contrast is very deliberate and very well crafted.

  • My favorite Blondie song from my favorite Blondie album. Autoamerican,in my opinion, was their zenith. Takes me right back to late 1980. This album just oozes greatness! FOREVER BLONDIE !!!!!!

  • Definitely my favorite track. Jimmy Destrii at his best.

    Chainsaw Chuck.

  • This wasn't on here the last time I looked. I should check these things more often.

    This song is hauntingly beautiful, despite the annoying intro.

  • This is my favourite song off AutoAmerican, and it must rate as Blondie's best album track alongside Shayla, Slow Motion, and Fade Away And Radiate.

  • My favourite too...

  • This is my favourite Blondie song :) I'm from Hungary :)

  • This song literally brings tears to my eyes.

  • This is one of my absolute favorite songs. The first time I heard Autoamerican was on a family road trip in 1980. My parents had bought the tape and we listened to it the whole time. This song got me hooked on Blondie and have been a huge fan since. The melody is haunting and original.

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