Song Lyric Sunday: Disco

Posted on by

This week, Jim has chosen disco music as our theme for Song Lyric Sunday, as you can read about in his post, Discotheque. Disco music really took off around the mid Seventies, and was part of the reason I began to lose interest in the singles charts: I found most of it mind-numbingly boring! The craze saw some mega sales, though, and is epitomised for me by the Saturday Night Fever movie, and all the hits it gave the Bee Gees and others. But I’m absolutely not going anywhere near it! Things began to wane in the early Eighties, though there have been several revivals going under names like ‘dance pop’ since then. I’m playing two songs today, one of which is from 1978 and the other is from one of those revivals. This is my lead choice for today:

Amidst all of the poppy stuff that was deluging us back then, this absolute classic appeared. Here are its lyrics:

Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind

Once I had a love and it was divine
Soon found out I was losing my mind
It seemed like the real thing, but I was so blind
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind

In between
What I find is pleasing and I’m feeling fine
Love is so confusing there’s no peace of mind
If I fear I’m losing you. it’s just no good
You teasing like you do

Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind

Lost inside
Adorable illusion and I cannot hide
I’m the one you’re using, please don’t push me aside
We coulda made it cruising, yeah

La, da, da, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, da, da, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, da, da, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
Yeah, riding high on love’s true bluish light

Ooh, oh, ooh, oh
Ooh, oh, ooh, oh

Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass
Seemed like the real thing only to find
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind

In between
What I find is pleasing and I’m feeling fine
Love is so confusing there’s no peace of mind
If I fear I’m losing you it’s just no good
You teasing like you do

La, da, da, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la….

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Chris Stein / Deborah Harry

Heart of Glass lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Freibank Musikverlags und vermarktungs GmbH, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Heart Of Glass was first released in September 1978, on Blondie’s third album, Parallel Lines, which reached #6 in the US but went all the way to #1 here in the UK: though the band was American, their early career saw much more success here than in their homeland. The song was released as a single in January 1979 and topped the charts in both the US and the UK. Remarkably, though it was their fifth big hit here it was their first to make the US singles charts: doing it in style! The album has sold more than 16m copies, The single, which also made #1 in many other countries, sold a million n the US, well over that in the UK, and half a million each in Germany and France. Amongst all the pop pap dross that was stuffing up our radio stations back then, this one really stood out for me as something a bit special.

If you think that was a big hit, try my second song for size:

Nice video. She knows how to sell a song, doesn’t she! Can’t Get You Out Of My Head was released in September 2001 as the lead single from Kylie Minogue’s eighth album, Fever, which came out a couple of weeks later. The album was #1 in the UK and many other countries, including her native Australia, and made #3 in the US, selling over 6m copies worldwide in the process. The single was also a massive hit, making #1 in forty countries, including the UK, though it only got to #7 in the US. That still amounted to over 500k sales, though that is dwarfed by the more than 1.5m it achieved in the UK, as part of total worldwide sales of more than 5m. It was classified as ‘dance pop,’ which makes it disco in my book, and you will now be singing it all day! La-la-la, la-la la-la-la…

See you again on Tuesday, as ever 🎶

34 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: Disco”

  1. Pingback: Come What May | Take It Easy

  2. Thank you from your Vroom Vroom Team for sharing your links with us at #262 SSPS Linky. Please check back weekly to see if featured on the blog post or by any co-hosts.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Blondie were in my view a rock band who encompassed a wide range of styles. This one was very much in the main disco era and was their take on it. It seemed to have worked for them. Kylie is a huge star just about everywhere, apart from N America, it seems 🤣

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Please leave a reply, I'd like to know what you think