from my Substack archives: 1 July 2025
It’s a nice day for music birthdays. There’s Jeff Wayne, turning 82 today, the guy who gave us the prophetic Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, or Fred Schneider, founder member, guitarist and singer of the B-52’s, who is 74 years old and still bouncing around like the Rock Lobster in the massive hit he wrote.
But I’m playing a special birthday girl’s discography to listen to while I work. A very important orphan once named Angela Trimble was born on the first of July 1945. She is my Sunday Girl, any day of the week, and I often wear the T-shirt on weekdays to prove it. It’s in the wash today, else I’d post a selfie.
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Baby Angela was adopted when she was just four months old. Catherine and Richard Harry named their angelic little answered prayer Deborah Ann Harry. Debbie was a happy tomboy in her childhood, and didn’t care a jot when she found out, after her fourth birthday, that her loving parents had adopted her. She eventually discovered her Scottish roots, and learned the surnames of her biological provenance: Trimble and Mackenzie. When she was much older, she went and found her birth mother, a concert pianist, who, it turned out, still didn’t want her around, whether she was baby Angela or grown-up Debbie.[i]
Debbie, a pretty brunette, went to Hawthorne High School, where she was voted “Best Looking” and finished school in 1963. She earned an Associate of Arts degree in 1965. Before starting her music career, she moved to New York City in the late 1960s and spent a year working as a secretary at the BBC Radio office. She later held various jobs, including waitressing at Max’s Kansas City, dancing in a Union City discothèque, and sometimes working as a Playboy Bunny to support her and her band members. It wasn’t an easy road. Chris Stein became Harry’s boyfriend in 1973, and it’s a miracle they’re still alive. In her memoir Face It, she recounts being raped at knifepoint during a break-in at the home they shared. They both battled drug and alcohol addiction. The band was washed out and they were literally dying, when Debbie broke up the band in 1982. Chris had been diagnosed with pemphigus, an autoimmune disease, and Debbie focussed on looked after him.
I got to know Debbie Harry very well in 1980, when Blondie’s song Call me was one of the hits of the year because of Richard Gere. In our all-girls high school, we swooned for the American Gigolo and sniggered at the saucy idea of a chap pimping himself. It was tradition for the Junior Matrics to present an annual variety concert to raise funds for the Matric Farewell Ball. It was three hours of twaddle that must have been excruciating for our dutiful parents to sit through. In one of the skits, we decided to do imitations of pop videos on Pop Shop. I think David Gresham or Karl Kikillus presented the programme. We only got TV in South Africa in 1976, so it was all still very thrilling to see musicians perform. For our skit, I was Debbie and my friend Norma was Richard Gere. Our beautiful, one-of-a-kind Norma –may her sweet soul rest in peace – was so convincing in male drag that one of the usually sensible girls in the audience almost fainted in a swoon and said she felt quite queer, and had to be carried away to Sick Bay. There was a fair bit of gossip after that, I can tell you. Anyway, I borrowed a leopard skin print lycra bodysuit that felt like plastic shrink wrap from a classmate who wore it to parties on purpose, teased my hair, and they gave me a real mic stand. The speakers blasted Call Me, while I mimed being Debbie and Norma walked around me like a brothel creeper, leering and tipping her fedora. I don’t remember where she got the hat; perhaps one of my class of ’81 friends will call me and tell me later. (I know you are reading, I love you today and always.)
The crowd in charge of stage design had bought smoke bombs to give the stage a smoky effect so popular with film producers at the time, but they only half-exploded, so it turned out nothing like the Pop Shop video.
Ten years after I finished school, in 1991, the Cold War ended on the 1st of July, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Warsaw Pact wasn’t really needed anymore. It officially dissolved that year. Without the Pact, the Eastern bloc countries started breaking away from Soviet control, many aiming to join Western organizations like NATO and the EU. The collapse of the Soviet Union also meant the US was left as the sole superpower for a while, which totally changed global politics. Some of those former Warsaw Pact countries joined NATO, which Russia has always seen as a bit of a threat. As we know, that tension is still around today, albeit bubbling in another cauldron. At the same time, Eastern Europe got the chance to rebuild democracies and economies, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. There was political upheaval, economic hardship, and plenty of new challenges to face. The Warsaw Pact was basically the Eastern bloc’s defense club during the Cold War, and when it ended, it reshaped Europe’s political landscape and set the stage for the world we live in now. Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsen back then, Putin today. Anything could happen, just look at all the battles that have occurred in this day in history: in 1916: during World War I: First day on the Somme: On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded. 1942: during World War II: First Battle of El Alamein.
And yet, there are glimmers: on the 1st of July 1972, the first Gay pride march took place in England. Let’s be kind to England, at least for tonight, for that.
Not long after Debbie and Chris Stein got together, they renamed their band Blondie, and Debbie bleached her hair. Today I told a young friend that it’s Debbie Harry’s birthday, and he said “Whooodat?” She was so much the very identity of her band that people thought her name was Blondie. I sang, in my dreadful voice, Call Me, and he, being a gay fellow familiar with grindr, did a little shimmy of recognition. Debbie’s music, her sheer beauty, inimitable style, and bleached-blonde hair made her a cult icon.
In India, the 1st of July is observed as “National Doctors’ Day … honoring the legacy of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, affectionately known as Dr B.D. or Dr Beedi, physician and former Chief Minister of West Bengal. His contributions to healthcare and medical education are celebrated nationwide. This day serves as a poignant reminder of the intricate relationship between the medical field and the human psyche. It prompts us to reflect on the profound impact that mental health has on overall well-being and the importance of integrating psychological care into medical practice. Just as Dr. Roy advanced medical science, we must continue to advance our understanding of the mind, ensuring that psychological health receives the attention it rightfully deserves.” Mind and body, my friends, take care.
Cultivate the company and friendship of people outside your community, and come to know them as well as your own. The understanding and appreciation that develop from such social contacts is the best way of removing inter-state differences, and makes life richer and more interesting.
Dr B.D. Roy[ii]
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Colour me your colour, baby, colour me your car
Colour me your colour, darling, I know who you are
Come up off your colour chart
I know where you’re coming from
Call me on the line
Call me, call me any, anytime
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
[i] Harry, D., & Simmons, S. (2019). Face It: A Memoir. Dey Street Books.
[ii] Roy, B.C. (attributed). Quoted in various commemorative speeches and articles marking National Doctors’ Day in India.
[iii] Writer/s: Deborah Harry, Giorgio Moroder
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
And lots of shit I just know, because I read.
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