(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear

(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear Blondie - Presence, Dear (UK).jpg UK vinyl single picture sleeve single Blondie Plastic Letters "Poet's Problem" "Detroit 442" April 1978 1977 Plaza Sound Studios New wavealbum mw0000196165 Tracey Ullman - You Broke My Heart in 17 Places (1983) Review Mason Stuart June 23, 2024 2:43 Chrysalis (UK) Gary Valentine Richard Gottehrer Denis 1978 Picture This 1978 single Blondie - (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear.ogg JziVnT0d6tY "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear" "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear" is a song by the American band Blondie, from their 1978 album Plastic Letters. Written by former Blondie bassist Gary Valentine, the song was based on the telepathic connections that Valentine believed he experienced with his girlfriend, journalist Lisa Jane Persky, while on tour. Though Valentine had recently left the band, drummer Clem Burke convinced the band to record the song for Plastic Letters. "Presence, Dear" was released in 1978 as the second single from Plastic Letters, reaching number 10 in the UK singles chart in May 1978. It was never released as a single in the US. The song has since seen critical acclaim and has been ranked by some music writers as one of the band's best songs. Background It was written by Blondie bass player Gary Valentine for his then-girlfriend, the actress and journalist Lisa Jane Persky, before his departure from the band.McLeod Kembrew Blondie's Parallel Lines (33 and 1/3) 24 March 2016 Bloomsbury Publishing USA 978-1-5013-0239-8 https://books.google.com/books?id=JDpqCwAAQBAJ en Valentine had also written the band's first single, "X Offender". In a 2012 interview, Valentine jokingly explained that the song concerns a telepathic connection between him and Persky. "That was about these paranormal experiences I was having with my girlfriend at the time. We were in telepathic contact with each other when I was on tour. We would discover we’d be having the same dreams and we always seemed to know what the other was doing, which sometimes proved uncomfortable!" Bianca Valentino http://conversationswithbianca.com/2012/09/26/gary-lachman-interview/ Blondie's Gary Lachman on Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality Conversations with Bianca 26 September 2012 23 May 2013 24 July 2013 https://web.archive.org/web/20130724091322/http://conversationswithbianca.com/2012/09/26/gary-lachman-interview/ dead More seriously, in New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation Valentine wrote: "During the Iggy [Pop] tour we discovered we were having the same kind of dreams or found we were thinking of each other at the same time. Although we were thousands of miles apart, we were still in touch. Thinking of this one afternoon, it all came together in a song."Gary Valentine New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006) p. 174 The lyrics include references to kismet, theosophy, R.E.M, levitation and the stratosphere. Though Valentine had left the band by the recording of the band's second album, Plastic Letters, drummer Clem Burke convinced the band to record "Presence, Dear" for the album. Gary Valentine's version of the song was released on the 2003 compilation of his work in music, titled Tomorrow Belongs to You.http://www.allmusic.com/album/tomorrow-belongs-to-you-mw0000694923 Tomorrow Belongs to You allmusic.com 31 January 2014 Release "Presence, Dear" was released as the second single from Plastic Letters. It was issued in both 7" and 12" formats in the UK, with two songs on the B-side, as were previous singles, "Rip Her to Shreds" and "Denis". One of the single's B-side tracks was "Detroit 442", and the other was Jimmy Destri's "Poets Problem", which was not on the original release of Plastic Letters. "Poets Problem" was first issued on CD on the 1993 rarities compilation Blonde and Beyond and later as a bonus track on both the 1994 and 2001 re-releases of Plastic Letters. As the follow-up to the UK hit "Denis," "Presence, Dear" was a commercial success in the UK, reaching number ten on the UK singles chart. The single also reached number ten in the Netherlands and number 14 in Belgium. The single did not chart in the US. Blondie performed the song on the BBC2 television show The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978.The Old Grey Whistle Test DVD Warner Home Video 2003 Reception "Presence, Dear" has seen critical acclaim since its release. Stewart Mason of AllMusic wrote, "It's one of the group's early highlights, a sweet little power pop love song that features a brilliantly starry-eyed lyric set to an addictive jangly guitar riff. The missing link between Big Star's #1 Record and the dB's Stands for Decibels, '(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear' pulls off the difficult trick of being dryly ironic and utterly sincere at the same moment."Mason Stewart (I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear - Blondie Song Info https://www.allmusic.com/song/im-always-touched-by-your-presence-dear-mt0029937671 AllMusic 2 October 2020 en-us The Rolling Stone Album Guide called the song a "catchy single" that "taps into Harry's emotional reserves."Blondie https://books.google.com/books?id=t9eocwUfoSoC&pg=PA85 Coleman Mark Berger Arion The New Rolling Stone Album Guide Brackett Nathan Hoard Christian Simon & Schuster 4th 2004 0-7432-0169-8 85–86 The Rolling Stone Album Guide GQ ranked the song as Blondie's second best, writing, "If you ever doubted Blondie's ability to be funny, intelligent, culty and yet bubblegum, it's here in the lines of this song: 'We could navigate together, psychic frequencies / Coming into contact with outer entities / We could entertain each one with our theosophies.Levesley David Ten Blondie songs that changed new wave https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/blondie-songs British GQ 16 April 2020 1 October 2020 The Daily Telegraph ranked it as one of the band's ten best songs, praising Harry's "glacial" vocals and describing the melody as "so insistent, you might need an exorcist to get it out of your head."Blondie: 10 best songs - "(I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/blondie-10-best-songs/always-touched-presence-dear-1978-plastic-lettersb-movie-ghost/ The Telegraph 1 October 2020 1 February 2017 New Times Broward-Palm Beach named the song as one of Blondie's five most underrated, noting, "Harry made its sweet ode to infatuation convincing."Castillo Arielle Five Underrated Songs By Blondie; Hard Rock Live Show March 25 https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/music/five-underrated-songs-by-blondie-hard-rock-live-show-march-25-6410989 New Times Broward-Palm Beach 1 October 2020 21 February 2012 Cover versions Tracey Ullman covered the song in her 1983 album You Broke My Heart in 17 Places. In 1995, Annie Lennox covered it as the B-side of her single "A Whiter Shade of Pale". 10,000 Maniacs covered the song and released it digitally in 2000. Release history UK 7" and 12" (CHS 2217) Side one "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear" (Gary Valentine) – 2:43 Side two "Poets Problem" (Jimmy Destri) – 2:20 "Detroit 442" (Jimmy Destri, Chris Stein) – 2:28 Charts +Chart performance for "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear"Chart (1978)PeakpositionFlanders 14 Blondie (I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear true July 28, 2013Dutch40 10 Blondie - I m Always Touched by Your Presence Dear true July 28, 2013Dutch100 8 Blondie (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear true May 25, 2024UK 10 19780527 true July 28, 2013 References Category:Blondie (band) songs Category:1978 singles Category:Songs written by Gary Lachman Category:Chrysalis Records singles Category:1977 songs