Blondie Vs. The Doors -- "Rapture Riders" (2005)

Killer on the road

And you try to run but he's got a gun
And he shoots you dead and he eats your head

You're not getting tired of Go Home Productions mashups yet, are you?  I'm certainly not.

Like most mashups, the GHP combination of Blondie's "Rapture" and the Doors' "Riders on the Storm" was entirely unofficial.  But it struck the fancy of both Blondie and the Doors and was released as a single with the approval of both bands.

That single made it into the top ten on the Billboard "Hot Dance Club Play" chart, and was also popular in Europe and Australia.  

"Riders on the Storm" was released on the 1971 album, L.A. Woman, which was the last album the Doors recorded before Jim Morrison's death.  The song was never a favorite of mine.

I have a vivid memory of hearing "Riders on the Storm" on the radio while driving back during a thunderstorm from a night drinking 3.2% beer in Kansas.  But that scenario seems a tad too perfect, doesn't it?

"Rapture" was released on Blondie's 1980 album, Autoamerican, which also included an instrumental overture, a cover of a song from the Broadway musical Camelot, and a cover of the ska hit, "The Tide Is High."

"Rapture" was a combination of disco and hip-hop, with a Van Halen-style guitar solo at the end.  It was the first single that featured rapping to make it to #1 on the Billboard "Hot 100" chart.

The rapped lyrics sound like something a couple of hyperactive 12-year-old science-fiction fans might have written:

And you get in your car and drive real far
And you drive all night and then you see a light

And it comes right down and lands on the ground
And out comes a man from Mars
And you try to run but he's got a gun
And he shoots you dead and he eats your head

And then you're in the man from Mars
You go out at night eatin' cars
You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns, too
Mercurys and Subarus

Blondie's Deborah Harry at 67

Eventually, the man from Mars tires of eating cars and starts eating bars.  (Not candy bars, but bars where people go to drink and dance.)  

[T]he man from Mars is through with cars

He's eatin' bars, yeah, wall to wall
Door to door, hall to hall
He's gonna eat 'em all

The tastes of the man from Mars change one more time before "Rapture" ends:

'Cause the man from Mars
Stopped eatin' cars and eatin' bars
And now he only eats guitars

Oh my . . . I didn't see that coming, and I bet you didn't either.

The music video for "Rapture" is a hot mess.  If you are old enough to remember 1980, it will take you back and then some.

One final note -- happy birthday to my oldest child, who turns 31 today.  (Coincidentally, I was 31 when he was born.  Just sayin'.)

Here's "Rapture Riders":

Click here and you can download "Rapture Riders" and dozens of other Go Home Productions mashups for free.