A brand new lyric video is released today (23) for “Moonlight Drive,” the lead track from the forthcoming, expansive boxed set by Blondie, Against The Odds 1974-1982. The collection will be available on August 26.
The new clip shares the lyrics to the propulsive, previously-unreleased version of the Doors track, which has powerful guitar and keyboards and an unmistakably charismatic performance by frontwoman Debbie Harry. The cover has a more straight-ahead rock feel than the more bluesy original, which appeared on the Doors’ second album Strange Days in 1967.
Written by the band’s Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Ray Manzarek, and Robbie Krieger, the original featured the latter’s memorable slide guitar. According to Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman’s 1980 biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, Morrison wrote the song on a rooftop in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, in 1965. “Moonlight Drive” includes such lyrics as “Let’s swim to the moon, let’s climb through the tide, penetrate the evenin’ that the city sleeps to hide.”
Blondie’s version has been known to fans as a live bootleg for many years, but the new release is its first studio incarnation by the band. Writes NPR’s Lars Gotrich: “Where John Densmore shuffled the beat, Clem Burke pedals a punked-up disco groove under barroom piano, power chords and Debbie Harry’s wild-eyed seduction. With dramatic pauses and a climax pounded like the very tides swum to the moon, the arrangement teases and romps. While very little can dissuade me to reconsider The Doors, there’s a reckless glamor to this version that can’t be denied.”
Blondie: Against The Odds 1974-1982 will be available in a Super Deluxe Collectors’ Edition as well as Deluxe 4LP, Deluxe 8CD and 3CD. It contains all six of their studio albums for Chrysalis, expanded to include over four dozen demo recordings.
Pre-order Blondie: Against The Odds 1974-1982, which is released on August 26.
