X Offender

X Offender was Blondie's debut single, released on June 17, 1976 by Private Stock Records and the lead single from the album Blondie. It began as Sex Offender; Private Stock asked for the change, and the album's Wikipedia page says radio stations would not play the original title. It did not chart, but Chrysalis signed the band after hearing it together with the album.

Gary Valentine wrote the first version about an eighteen-year-old arrested for sex with his younger girlfriend. Far Out Magazine says it drew on his own experience at seventeen, when his girlfriend became pregnant and he ran to avoid statutory rape charges; the sources do not settle which account is right. Deborah Harry rewrote the lyric from the woman's point of view: a prostitute infatuated with the policeman who arrested her. Diffuser quotes Harry on the song's subject as how society defines a sex crime. Valentine said the melody came to him one night at Max's and that the song got the record deal. Craig Leon, one of the producers, called the title a goof on Richard Gottehrer.

The recording

Richard Gottehrer produced, with Craig Leon credited as co-producer on this track and on In the Sun. The album page gives the line-up as Harry on vocals, Chris Stein on guitars and bass, Valentine on bass and guitar, Clem Burke on drums and percussion, and Jimmy Destri on keyboards. Clem Burke told Far Out the studio arrangement was not a copy of the band's live sound.

The single is dated June 1976, but the album sessions at Plaza Sound in New York are given as August and September 1976, so the single was probably cut earlier; the sources do not say. The single runs 3:15 on the song's page and the album track 3:11. A 2001 reissue adds the original Private Stock single version at 3:13.

Release and legacy

The US single was PS-45.097 on Private Stock, with a promo PVT 1351 BW in stereo and mono, and the UK single was PVT 90. The B-side was In the Sun, written by Stein, and the song also turned up as the B-side of In the Flesh in the UK. Cash Box on July 24, 1976 called it a good tune with a driving beat and compared the band to The Tubes. Setlist.fm lists it in 187 Blondie setlists. Far Out argues it is a candidate for the start of new wave, which is that writer's framing, not a consensus.

The upload on hypersongs is the BlondieVEVO video, the official promotional video; which edit the video uses is not stated.