The fourth single off Parallel Lines and the least interesting - from the inverted 'Then He Kissed Me' riff in, Blondie are back from the disco and in familiar fifties/sixties pop pastiche territory. Nothing wrong with that, it was their stock in trade over their first two albums, but in comparison 'Sunday Girl' lacks any bite, and though the choppy guitar chords and swirling Hammond try their best the end result is pop candyfloss saved from total anonymity by Harry's vocal. Never the most versatile of singers, she flexes her full range over 'Sunday Girl' from the innocence of "I know a girl from a lonely street", the yearning drawl of "She can't catch up with the working crowd" to her New York snarl on "Baby, I would like to go out tonight" - it all adds up to a song you never quite know how to 'take'. It's a bi-polar listen for sure, but it's one that keeps the listener on their toes, which is more than the pedestrian backing does. My favourite version of the song is the English/French vocal hybrid that Mike Chapman mixed especially for the original 'Best Of Blondie' album where Harry's Francophile coos add another unexpected dimension to the tune, a whiff of the exotic amongst the ordinary. That's not the version that got to number one, but maybe it should have been.
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