Songs for the Taking 8

On Blondie's "Dreaming" and on Clem Burke

I’ve been shooting my mouth off for years that “Dreaming,” Blondie’s greatest song, is the band’s Edith Wharton novel. And now that the song’s secret weapon, drummer Clem Burke, is gone today at age 70 of cancer, maybe I’d better explain myself.

Blondie is, in their bones, a New York band and Wharton is at heart a New York novelist. It’s quite likely tha…