My Gen X Playlist: The Tide is High – Blondie

How do you manage screen time for yourself?

The quick and dirty answer is I don’t. I probably should be better about this, but I’m not. The TV will be on and I’m still scrolling. I’m doing the dishes while listening to a podcast. I’m on a walk, listening to music. I’ve stopped looking at my phone while driving. Thank goodness I dropped that bad habit. But I don’t manage my screen time as I should.

I will say that now on sabbatical, my online activity has dropped a bit. I don’t seem to be online all of the time. When I was working, I probably had to consolidate down into less free time. I now have more time to spread throughout the day. Do I have too much time? I don’t think so. I look at it as just catching up, evening the scales. There are ebbs and flows and the world tends to balance itself out in the end. I’m enjoying the ebb currents right now. I’ll enjoy them now before the tide comes rolling back in.

I never knew Blondie’s The Tide is High wasn’t an original. It turns out that it was a cover of a Jamaican group called The Paragons from 1967. Deborah Harry stumbled upon the song by chance after buying a compilation tape while in London. You’ve got to love chance encounters stories. Although Blondie typically wrote all of their music, they made the exception for The Tide is High. It had such wide appeal, even touching John Lennon.

Even before ‘The Tide Is High’ came out, Blondie were a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic, but it was the reggae number which courted the admiration of the one and only John Lennon.

During a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, his son Sean Lennon revealed: “My father had an old Wurlitzer in the game room of our house on Long Island. It was filled with 45s, mostly Elvis and The Everly Brothers.”

“The one modern song I remember him listening to was ‘The Tide Is High’ by Blondie, which he played constantly.”

“When I hear that song, I see my father, unshaven, his hair pulled back into a ponytail, dancing to and fro in a worn-out pair of denim shorts, with me at his feet, trying my best to coordinate tiny limbs.”

– smoothradio

A chance purchase of a compilation tape leading to John Lennon dancing unshaven, in a ponytail with his son at his feet. Life often tells the best stories.

–

For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that
Oh, no

It's not the things you do that tease and hurt me bad
But it's the way you do the things you do to me

I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that
Oh, no

The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
Number one, number one

Every girl wants you to be her man
But I'll wait my dear 'til it's my turn

I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that
Oh, no

The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
Number one, number one

Every girl wants you to be her man
But I'll wait my dear 'til it's my turn

I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that
Oh, no

The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
Number one, number one

Every girl wants you to be her man
But I'll wait my dear 'til it's my turn

I'm not the kind of girl who gives up just like that
Oh, no

The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
Number one, number one
Number one

The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one

The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
Your number one