On the Bowery yesterday, I am interviewing Karen of Ramona and the conversation wanders and we get on to Blondie, Karen’s fave is the first album, mine the second. She loves that one as well, and with a little egging I get her to sing “Love At The Pier” on to my recorder.
Karen pauses for a moment, collects the melody in her mind, and nails every note for a verse. And when I add that I love the shouted line, she adds: “Honey, keep the beer”.
I’ve written about Plastic Letters pretty extensively here. A New Yorkers album to beat all New Yorker albums: on the “e” train, without a car, touched by the presence and down by the pier. It’s as new york as rockaway beach.
The song is a kinda wry disaster: a sci-fi story of
thwarted romance: the boy drowns and Debbie laments: “We may have stood a chance if we met in the frost”.
Hope Ramona decide to cover it because Karen can certainly sing it.