Frankly, this woman should need no explanation as woman of the month it's clear, it's obvious and woman of the year wouldn't be too fine a point to make, though as she's been a glorious role model since I was fifteen and I'm now well past the middle of my year 37 then Debbie Harry could also go for Woman of the Score. Well scored.

Why?

But hey, that's just looks there's also the fact that when she sprang into our teen girl consciousness, she was already a WOMAN. Not a girlie, not (God forbid) a tweenie, not a babe, chick, bird, lass, but an honest-to-goodness grownup woman. Who looked like an adult, dressed like a diva, and sang like she knew how to fuck. (Admittedly at fifteen we assumed she must have been all of about twenty five anything older than that was unthinkable and of course she was older than that; but the point is, while she didn't look like what we thought thirties looked like, she wasn't aping sixteen either.)

Now, I know there are those who say punk was part of the feminist movement, yeah, right, those Sex Pistol boys were just so woman-aware! (I reckon Nancy would think so, eh Sid?) There are also those who say America never had punk. Not the real thing. And Išm one of them, America didnšt. Just as America thinks "Sex and the City" is cutting edge and radical (hell yeah, apolitical clothes horses talking about men all the time is so goddamn radical I can hardly believe they allow it to be broadcast!!), America also thought punk was the same as girls in torn stockings and boys in thin ties. No, it was a little more than that (just a little mind you), but it doesn't matter, you're forgiven, for in your gentler, sweeter version of what "punk" might stand for when you didn't have a Queen's image to deface, you gave the world Debbie Harry. (And Patti Smith too, praise her thin bones.)

Debbie Harry never looked like she was trying to look younger than her years. (Now listen, we're sorry all right? We didn't mean it, whatever it was we did, we apologise, we abase ourselves and admit we were bad, wrong and misguided now will you please take Madonna back??) Debbie Harry never looked like an emaciated stick insect or a muscle-bound dynamo. She had still has a bloody good voice. She famously stood by her man, making even the classic rock n' roll relationship looked not only possible, but desirable -- maybe even sexier than the twelve dozen one-night-stands it's supposed to take us to get to "real" womanhood. She didn't waffle about "girl-power" and or being "feisty and forthright", she just got on with delivering the goods and doing it well.

And God love her, she still is. I saw her perform live a couple of years ago, tottering about the stage in ludicrous heels and a skirt that clung to her hips like (simile search in progress) -- well, like I wanted to. Her voice was a little rougher round the edges, as it should be, as life ought to have made it. But she pouted and she swayed and she sashayed and she sang, and the whole West End theatre was on its feet. Sure, part of our joy was the memories evoked by those old "Parallel Lines" songs, the teenage lusts and lamenting the twenty-year-old tracks recalled, but we were up and dancing to the new stuff too. And "Maria" has pride of place in my car tape deck -- one of my best motorway musics of recent years.

Marilyn without the maudlin, all-woman without the wailing and gnashing of teeth. This is just what we need for the twenty-first century; grownup women who aren't hanging on to the possibility of maybe being mistaken for a girl, who show that womanhood, with its fullness of flirt and roundness of ability, is not to be denied in a welter of teenage longing, but welcomed and revelled in.

Of course this could all be conjecture, probably Debbie Harry is as fucked-up as the rest of us. Certainly she's never seemed invulnerable, just real with the added glow of old-fashioned star-quality. Combine that with actual creative ability as opposed to simply spending lots on great production. And there's the secret of her longevity. She's plain good at what she does. Long may she continue to do so.

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