"(Ave) Maria" by Blondie

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Anesti33

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So last Easter I went hunting for disguised Christian messages in pop songs. I came across this new Blondie song and it electrified me. Keyboardist Jimmy Destri penned the lyrics, and apparently he wrote it after seeing a young Latina walking by. The song itself is about unbridled lust and wasn’t designed to be particularly religious.

But what electrifies me is the refrain, and seeing a hipster crowd cheer as Debbie Harry cries “Ave Maria!” over and over again. Believe what you want, she’s praying to Our Lady of Guadalupe in her own way. Also, she sings “Latina Ave Maria” but “Regina” would fit just as well.

I think it’s a paean to Latino Catholic culture and a “welcome to America” from a distinctly American band.


 
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The California radio station KKIQ gave “Maria” a significant amount of airplay back in 1999.
 
Maxirad said:
The California radio station KKIQ gave “Maria” a significant amount of airplay back in 1999.
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I am not surprised, considering Blondie’s enduring popularity. I remember being entranced by “Rapture”, the first white woman to rap a song. And the groove in “Heart of Glass” is priceless. Lyric: “mucho mistrust”, she must have been Latina-friendly all this time.
 
I don’t think it’s a prayer nor a homage to the Blessed Virgin Mary. I think it’s actually a SUBTLE blasphemy.

One of the pre-chorus lines is:
Ooh, don’t you wanna break her?
Ooh, don’t you wanna take her home?
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To me, this song sounds like it’s about a beautiful girl (most likely a beautiful & innocent girl) named Maria that a guy is lusting after.

I don’t think this is the Blessed Mother, but I think this is a actually a pretty sick & perhaps demonic song where someone is lusting after a girl named Maria, comparing her the Blessed Mother, and still lusting after her.

The words of the song do not seem to be a subtle prayer, they seem to be a subtle blasphemy.
 
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Not gonna lie, this is the logical interpretation.

Debbie Harry appeared as a mother in John Waters’ “Hairspray” which was, on its surface, about racial segregation and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Of course, its undercurrent was LGBT acceptance and same-sex marriage. I didn’t pick up on that until years later.
 
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Anesti33 said:
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Maxirad:
The California radio station KKIQ gave “Maria” a significant amount of airplay back in 1999.
Click to expand...
I am not surprised, considering Blondie’s enduring popularity. I remember being entranced by “Rapture”, the first white woman to rap a song. And the groove in “Heart of Glass” is priceless. Lyric: “mucho mistrust”, she must have been Latina-friendly all this time.
Click to expand...
The song was written by Jimmy Destri, not Debbie Harry. It was debuted in Europe and was a big hit there. He was a cocaine addict for 25 years, who didn’t get clean until the late 2000s

They might have felt it would reach Hispanics, but the song wasn’t really received well here. The song hit number 1 in Spain, but there is no record of how it did in Latin America.
 
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