Blondie – One Way Or Another

Let’s move from Christmas to Blondie…not a bad thing. I hope everyone had a great Christmas/Holiday.

Yet another great pop/rock single by Blondie. Blondie had a short window but they made the best of it. They had 4 number 1 hits, 4 top 10 hits, and 10 songs in the Billboard 100 total.

Lead singer Debbie Harry wrote this song with the group’s bass player, Nigel Harrison. Harry wrote the lyrics to Blondie’s songs, but composer credit for the music was generally given solely to whoever made the biggest contribution. This was often guitarist Chris Stein, who co-wrote “Rapture” and “Heart Of Glass.”

The song was on the Parallel Lines album and peaked at #24 in the Billboard 100 in 1979.

From Songfacts

This song is about a stalker. The lyrics are very dark and go into detail about a guy with evil intentions, but the music is very light and catchy, which masked the meaning of the song. According to Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry, it was inspired by real events. She told Entertainment Weekly: “I was actually stalked by a nutjob, so it came out of a not-so-friendly personal event. I tried to inject a little levity into it to make it more lighthearted. It was a survival mechanism.”

Harry says that the title and the idea for the song popped into her head during a rehearsal, and most of the song was hashed out on the spot.

This was featured on a 2011 episode of the TV show Glee in a mashup with “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” The medley by the Glee Cast was released as a single and went to #86 in the US.

With radio-friendly songs like this one, Blondie was one of the first Punk bands to have Pop success. They played clubs like CBGB’s (stands for Country, BlueGrass, Blues) with bands like The Ramones and Television, but their songs were much lighter and led to mainstream acceptance. The Police and Talking Heads are other groups that came out of that scene.

In 2013 the UK boyband One Direction recorded a new version of this song, mashing it up with The Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks.” It was recorded to mark the 25th anniversary of the fundraising event Red Nose Day and was a hit in both the UK where it topped the chart and the US where it peaked at #13.

Kristen Bell sings this (quite well) at karaoke in the 2005 Veronica Mars episode “Clash Of The Tritons,” where she uses the song to alert a gang of her intentions.

One Way Or Another

One way or another, I’m gonna find ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna win ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya ,get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna see ya
I’m gonna meet ya, meet ya, meet ya, meet ya
One day, maybe next week, I’m gonna meet ya
I’m gonna meet ya, I’ll meet ya

I will drive past your house
And if the lights are all down
I’ll see who’s around

One way or another, I’m gonna find ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna win ya
I’ll get ya, I’ll get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna see ya
I’m gonna meet ya, meet ya, meet ya, meet ya
One day, maybe next week, I’m gonna meet ya
I’ll meet ya, ah

And if the lights are all out
I’ll follow your bus downtown
See who’s hangin’ out

One way or another, I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna give you the slip
A slip of the hip or another, I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna trick ya, I’ll trick ya
One way or another, I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna trick ya, trick ya, trick ya, trick ya
One way or another, I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna give you the slip

I’ll walk down the mall
Stand over by the wall
Where I can see it all
Find out who ya call
Lead you to the supermarket checkout
Some specials and rat food
Get lost in the crowd

One way or another, I’m gonna get ya (where I can see it all, find out who ya call)
I’ll get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna get ya (where I can see it all, find out who ya call)
I’ll get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna get ya (where I can see it all, find out who ya call)
I’ll get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna get ya (where I can see it all, find out who ya call)
I’ll get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna get ya (where I can see it all, find out who ya call)
I’ll get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna get ya (where I can see it all, find out who ya call)
I’ll get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya