“Call Me” is a song by the American new wave band Blondie and the theme to the 1980 film American Gigolo. Produced and composed by Italian musician Giorgio Moroder, with lyrics by Blondie singer Debbie Harry, the song appeared in the film and was released in the United States in early 1980 as a single.
“Call Me” was No. 1 for six consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, where it became the band’s biggest single and second No. 1 It also hit No. 1 in the UK and Canada, where it became their fourth and second chart-topper, respectively. In the year-end chart of 1980, it was Billboard’s No. 1 single and RPM magazine’s No. 3 in Canada.
Composition and recording
“Call Me” was composed by Italian disco producer Giorgio Moroder as the main theme song of the 1980 film American Gigolo. It is played in the key of D minor with a tempo of 143 beats per minute, with Debbie Harry’s vocals ranging from C4 to E5. Moroder originally asked Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac to perform a song for the soundtrack, but she was prevented because of a recently signed contract with Modern Records. Moroder turned to Debbie Harry of Blondie, presenting Harry with an instrumental track called “Man Machine”. Harry was asked to write the lyrics, a process that Harry states took a mere few hours. The lyrics were written from the perspective of the main character in the film, a male prostitute.
“Call Me”
Debbie Harry wrote the song’s lyrics; she was coached by composer Giorgio Moroder to add some Italian- and French-language phrases including “Amore, chiamami” and “Appelle-moi, mon chéri”.
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Harry said the lyrics were inspired by her visual impressions from watching the film and that “When I was writing it, I pictured the opening scene, driving on the coast of California.” The completed song was then recorded by the band, with Moroder producing. The bridge of the original English-language version also includes Harry saying “call me” in two European languages: Italian: Amore, chiamami, lit. ’Love, call me’ and French: Appelle-moi, mon chéri, lit. ’Call me, my darling’.
In 2014, keyboardist-composer Harold Faltermeyer remembered the recording process as having three main sections: first Moroder and his music crew recorded an instrumental version of the song at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, with the tape locked to SMPTE timecode so that it would synchronize with the film. Then the project moved to New York for the Blondie recording session, at which the band surprised Moroder by insisting they would play their own parts. Faltermeyer was engineering when Harry sang and Chris Stein played electric guitar. Stein’s guitar and amplifier were buzzing and noisy, so his setup was repaired to get a clean recording. The band had difficulty locking to sync, so Moroder stopped the unfinished sessions to save time, and took the project back to Los Angeles to more quickly add the final parts with his own picked musicians, including a keyboard solo by Faltermeyer.
On the American Gigolo soundtrack album, Blondie the band is credited only for vocals, with other credits naming Moroder’s crew of Keith Forsey on drums/percussion and Faltermeyer on keyboards and arrangements. Faltermeyer said the band was angry about being replaced by session players, but the song turned out to be very successful, so they took it in stride. Blondie keyboard player Jimmy Destri was obligated to play Faltermeyer’s solo in concerts.