Europa

When Europe kicks off with those first piano chords stretching like a sigh over a bed of taut strings, there’s no way not to feel you’re listening to something different. It’s not just the start of another track from the album Autoamerican, but a sharp turn in the sound of Blondie. The song unfolds like a symphonic overture, with orchestral arrangements lending it a cinematic air, before ending with Debbie Harry’s voice reciting a text in an almost liturgical tone. The contrast between the grandeur of the introduction and that final declamation is what gives it its power: it’s not a song you listen to, it’s one you experience.

Recorded in 1980 alongside the rest of the material for Autoamerican, Europe was the first track to set the tone for the album. They weren’t aiming to repeat the success of Parallel Lines or Eat to the Beat; they wanted something that sounded like the future. Engineer Lenise Bent and producer Mike Chapman crafted a sound where the classical and the modern clashed without warning, and the result was a track that didn’t fit into any category of its time. It lasted just over three minutes, but in that span, more ideas fit than in half a dozen conventional songs.