Ramones - At the Roots of Punk

The Ramones were one of the most revolutionary bands in the history of rock. Although their career can't be entirely identified with the evolution of the "punk" phenomenon, they are recognized as its first and foremost instigators. The New York band's musical adventure began in March 1974, when the Ramones performed live for the first time in front of a handful of unlucky listeners. The band's name was taken from a pseudonym once used by Paul McCartney, and each member adopted it in place of their real surname. The very first lineup consisted of just three members: initially, Jeffrey Hyman, aka Joey "Ramone", was both singer and drummer, while the other two "fake brothers" Johnny and Dee Dee "Ramone" handled guitar and bass.

A few months later, the lineup was redefined with the arrival of Tommy "Ramone" on drums, and on August 16, 1974, the Ramones made their debut at CBGB's, which had opened the previous year: they soon found themselves, alongside Television, Patti Smith, Blondie, and later Talking Heads and others, among the glorious standard-bearers of that small, initially anonymous venue in the Big Apple that would soon become the famous and colorful temple of new wave, also frequented by intellectuals and leading figures of the New York underground such as Lou Reed, John Cale and Andy Warhol.

Such were, for the band, the beginnings of a long career that, lasting more than twenty years and troubled by several lineup changes, finally came to an end in 1996, a year after the release of Adios Amigos, the last of the fifteen studio albums the Ramones recorded. Over this long span of time, the band never changed, but rather refined, the winning formula that had defined their lasting success from the very start: fast, simple, catchy songs, halfway between sparkling rock'n'roll, garage and surf-rock; topped off with a few "pop" ballads and some delicious covers, rediscovered and brilliantly reworked in a modern key.

Listening to them thirty years on, their records retain, like few others, their original freshness intact, and remain remarkably relevant today. The Ramones are now among the most tributed rock bands of all time, up to the recent, if somewhat disappointing, tribute compilation We're a Happy Family (2003), which featured internationally renowned artists including Eddie Vedder, Tom Waits, U2, Metallica, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. There is also a truly vast number of current bands, more or less well known, around the world who draw inspiration from the Ramones or who have fun, which is perhaps the most fitting term, covering the quartet's songs. Bands like Screeching Weasel and Queers have gone so far as to cover an entire Ramones album (respectively, "Ramones" and "Rocket to Russia").

To our ears, now accustomed to countless imitators, the novelty that the Ramones' music must have represented in the mid-'70s is perhaps easy to overlook: the four New Yorkers created something truly revolutionary, a minimalist rock'n'roll that, once taken up and reworked by punk and certain strands of new wave, would have profound consequences: in their brilliant essentialism, their songs soon became an invaluable prototype drawn upon to open up countless new paths in rock; essential lessons, soon unconsciously absorbed, for almost everyone who came after them.

The Ramones' endeavor was a conscious attempt to recover the deep roots of a rock tradition that, by the mid-'70s, seemed to have lost some of the original vitality of the '50s and early '60s; but, far from being a return to the past, this attempt could only bring about a profound renewal of the era's existing structures as well. The rejection of the past, the drive to create something new, took the form of a wholesale questioning of the most widely shared values of mainstream rock, starting with the very icon of the "rockstar": the Ramones introduced an "anti-look" that, by comically exaggerating everyday clothing, became in turn an original look of its own, made up of leather jackets, tight t-shirts, ripped jeans and sneakers, which, in its cartoonish appearance, seemed to mock everything and everyone. But the real desecration happened on a strictly musical level; in Tommy's words: "We took the sound of rock into a psychotic world and concentrated it into a thin line of energy. In an era of progressive rock, with its complexities and counterpoints, we had a perspective of non-musicality and intelligence that overrode musical skill." This paved the way for the "democratization" of rock: after the Ramones, anyone could do it.

This was, however, not so much a mockery of musical technique (which the Sex Pistols did instead), but rather the deliberate rejection of a certain technicality that, in the early '70s, had become an end in itself at the expense of something that often couldn't be reconciled with it: rebellious youthful spontaneity, communicative immediacy, and the desire to entertain and to have fun.

The four's early songs were built on just a few chords framed by a wall of distorted guitar, a pulsing rhythm section, almost no frills, and the enveloping, utterly distinctive voice of Joey Ramone. The whole thing was exquisitely low-fi and pared down to an average of two minutes a track: no padding, just pure, undiluted energy.

The lyrics, bordering on verbal delirium, displayed total disengagement as the band's ongoing commitment to rejecting the kind of seriousness expected of a "real" musician: in a surreal, cartoon-like atmosphere, the Ramones sang about teenage neuroses and mental instability, California sunshine, baseball bats and dumb adolescent crushes. Their battle cry was the gloriously moronic "Hey, Ho, Let's Go!" Their slogan was the even more moronic "Gabba Gabba Hey!" There was only one watchword: "Fun." No matter what.

These are the premises underpinning Ramones, the legendary debut album released in April 1976, home to milestones such as "Blitzkrieg Bop," "Beat On The Brat," "53rd & 3rd," "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" and "Judy Is a Punk": at barely half an hour long, it's a phenomenal debut that left both audiences and critics of the time speechless. It feels like witnessing a kind of rock "year zero," such is the brilliant economy and irreverent simplicity of the project: the disoriented public of the day split down the middle, seeing the four of them either as geniuses or as clowns — or, in some cases, as both at once.

The Ramones' sound is rock stripped down to the bone, reduced to its essentials, a pulsing, gripping rhythm that leaves no time to think, to reflect, or even to simply enjoy the music; these are the songs of a frenzied everyday life, of a society always in a rush, in which even music can no longer be what it once was, but instead becomes deeply immersed in — and part of — the chaotic, fragmented urban life it mirrors and, with a wry grin, exorcises.

After Leave Home (1977), a solid, transitional second album highlighted by the explosive "Oh Oh I Love Her So," Rocket To Russia (1977) completed a sort of trilogy and stood as the masterful consolidation of their sound: what on the debut could still seem almost like a joke, or a bizarre experiment, had by punk's "official" birth year become the gospel of a genuine musical revolution, now fully mature in all its irreverent "immaturity."

1976-77 was the period in which the Ramones became associated with the large-scale explosion of the "punk" phenomenon and hailed as its foremost forerunners, particularly after their show at the Roundhouse in London on July 4, 1976 — their first outside the States — where the four of them won over the London crowd. It was the Ramones, in fact, who brought to London that gust of novelty through which the underground of New York Dolls and Richard Hell, imported by Malcolm McLaren, together with London's pub-rock scene — both new but not radically innovative phenomena — gave rise to something truly different from anything before: the punk movement was born, a grand synthesis of conflicting elements. Without the Ramones, indeed, it wouldn't be what we know today: it wouldn't have taken on its goofier, more mocking side; it wouldn't have aspired to a genuinely revolutionary sound, and would instead have stayed tethered to the glam sonics of bands like the New York Dolls.

In reality, though, the Ramones never fully belonged to "punk" as it developed once it landed in England, and in part that movement actually held back their career: there was no room in them for the self-destructive restlessness of the Sex Pistols, the social commitment of the Clash, or the alienated, decadent atmosphere of Siouxsie and the Damned (traits that would later feed into the punk-hardcore of bands like Dead Kennedys). Against the "no feelings" slogan enshrined in the title of a Sex Pistols song, the Ramones set, right from the start, "I wanna be your boyfriend," with its lines about a "sweet little girl"; in place of nihilism and social commitment, the Ramones offered cockiness and disengagement, and in place of existential anguish, a kind of positive energy that their music seemed to radiate, despite the irreverence it proposed.

So while the Ramones are rightly associated with the "punk" generation, the four of them should really be seen as a phenomenon not entirely coinciding with that movement but rather as a parallel one, and in many ways a thing unto itself: first of all, for the simple reason that the Ramones not only began performing a full two years before "punk" broke through, but also, unlike almost every other band of '77, went on to a long career after that same movement had run its course — and did so without even changing their winning formula all that much. Secondly, the four New Yorkers also drew part of their roots from earlier musical moments and themes that punk overlooked, if not outright rejected: love songs, for instance, especially those tear-jerking teenage songs that won over American teens between the late Fifties and early Sixties, songs that found their most brilliant architect in Phil Spector.

Filing the Ramones under "punk" uncritically and as a given ends up not only limiting their historical significance but, above all, musically penalizing them, making what are actually peculiar, distinctive traits of the band appear instead as shortcomings compared to "mature punk" (that is, the Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned, Heartbreakers, Avengers, etc.). Asserting, as we've just done, the peculiarity and independence of the Ramones' musical approach is a way of giving proper weight to a band whose greatest merit was, first and foremost, bringing back to life, in the mid-Seventies, the original, explosive energy of rock'n'roll: not as a revival of the past, but in a form so groundbreaking that it makes the four of them comparable to a new Chuck Berry for the punk era.

The "Maybellene" of the Seventies is called "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker": an energetic, fun, fizzy, dazzlingly agile track that truly crowns the Ramones as the most genuine rock'n'rollers of their day. "Sheena" remains the most deservedly famous track on Rocket To Russia and is also one of the most representative and acclaimed songs of the band's entire long career.

But the album certainly has no shortage of other memorable tracks: starting with the powerful opening track, the rollicking, gloriously dumb "Cretin Hop," and the following "Rockaway Beach," which draws clearly on surf-rock roots.

One new element comes with "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow": a softer track, with more reflective lyrics that also introduce a melancholy streak which, often tied to the theme of "lost love," would go on to recur in the Ramones' later music.

Finally, with their cover of "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen, we're faced not just with a tribute to surf-rock, but also with an exemplary demonstration of its reinterpretation in a modern key: surf, a genre that had also proliferated in a garage dimension in the early Sixties, now meets the garage sound of a later generation — the Ramones'. It's a lesson that would go on to win some illustrious converts.

Even though the Ramones never climbed the charts, the New York band's rapid rise was built above all on the sheer number of explosive live shows (over 2,200 concerts) that marked out their career: like few others, the Ramones were a band that truly lived off direct contact with their audience, which kept growing larger and more loyal. Proof of this is It's Alive, an extraordinary live album released in 1979 (though recorded in London on December 31, 1977) which, distilling the band's early phase, shows just how far from spent their vitality still was.

With their fourth album, Road To Ruin (1978), which saw former Voidoids drummer Marc Bell join the band, promptly rechristened Marky Ramone, the group shows signs of real maturity: through a handful of slower, more polished tracks that are no less immediate for it, the band's never-disavowed "pop" leanings come further to the fore, though this drew criticism from some fans. Today the result still holds up, and tracks like "Don't Come Close," "Questioningly" and the cover of "Needles And Pins" add new shades to the band's repertoire. That same year, 1978, the Ramones began shooting a film starring themselves; the movie, titled Rock 'n' Roll High School, came out the following year along with its soundtrack.

The two albums that follow, End Of The Century (1980), enhanced by the production of Phil Spector, and Pleasant Dreams (1981), confirm the band's partial shift in perspective toward “pop”: “Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?” from the first, and “We Want The Airwaves”, “The KKK Took My Baby Away” and the sweet, aching “7-11” from the second, are nonetheless among the finest moments of the band's entire career. A final appendix is devoted to the Ramones' more distinctly “pop” output.

Throughout the '80s, the band alternates between moments that are charged — sometimes even within the same album — with repetitiveness and a lack of inventiveness, and sudden, brilliant flashes of songwriting: among the latter, above all “Daytime Dilemma”, “Howling At The Moon” and “Chasing The Night” on Too Tough To Die (1984); “She Belongs To Me”, “My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down” and especially “Something To Believe In” on Animal Boy (1986); “I Wanna Live” and the precious ballad “Bye Bye Baby” on Halfway To Sanity (1987).

1989 brings Brain Drain, their tenth album, notable for “Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)” and “Pet Semetary”, the main theme from the soundtrack of the film of the same name based on the novel by Stephen King, who has always been a huge fan of the New York band.

The following work, Mondo Bizarro (1992), despite lamenting the departure of bassist Dee Dee in favor of the young C.J. Ramone, is in some ways an unexpected revelation for a band with so many years already behind it: the Ramones seem almost rejuvenated, as if they'd recovered their best form and found a good balance, despite recent internal tensions. Alongside other notable tracks, the album features the splendid “Poison Heart”, written by the departing Dee Dee and fully deserving a place among the band's finest achievements.

Also worth noting is the subsequent Acid Eaters (1993), a covers album of '60s material (from Bob Dylan to Eric Burdon, from Jefferson Airplane to Creedence, from the Stones to the Who, right up to the inevitable Brian Wilson).

From Rocket To Russia onward, Ramones albums usually opened up a small space for one or two gentler, more introspective tracks, where the euphoria seemed to dissolve into a faint, bittersweet melancholy, hinting at a youth slipping away, at time fleeing and carrying with it the memory of lost loves. Like comic-book characters who never change, Joey and the others seemed to want to stay forever the same, and their music, faithful to its origins to the end, was perhaps also a way of exorcising that passage of time which nonetheless surfaced timidly in some of their songs: but if the four of them even poked fun at time itself, time, as we know, spares no one. Adios Amigos (1995), the album that announced the band's breakup, opens with a cover whose title couldn't be more fitting: “I Don't Wanna Grow Up” is the final protest of the inner child who simply refuses to grow up and face life in a serious, responsible way; it's a declaration of the will to have fun without a care, to play around with music, to be young… one last time. That last time came on August 6, 1996, in Los Angeles: the Ramones' final live show, joined by Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, Tim Armstrong and others, brought to a close a long career of successes, commercial disappointments and great passion. That show is documented on We're Outta Here! (1997).

The years that follow, sadly, bring a string of tragic events that strip fans of any hope of ever seeing the band reunited: on April 15, 2001, after a long battle with lymphatic cancer, Joey Ramone, the eternal teenager, passed away.

Thin and very tall, with an androgynous charm, Joey hid behind his inseparable tinted glasses a form of color blindness. His had never been an easy life, yet he had become the leader of a band that expressed a vitality never before seen in rock music. Perhaps that's why Ramones music contains something “therapeutic”: for Joey it had also been a way of facing life… and death. Right to the end, the Ramones' singer stayed true to form, leaving behind, as a true spiritual testament, a solo album, Don't Worry About Me: starting with the touching, now-famous cover of “What a Wonderful World”, through “I Got Knocked Down (But I'll Get Up)” and the emblematic title track, his was a brave farewell, full of love for life, light years away from certain “decadent” rock'n'roll stereotypes.

Dee Dee was exactly the opposite: a writer of many of the band's songs and an eccentric personality, he was someone who had made those very stereotypes a way of life; in June 2002, he was found dead of a heroin overdose, just as, back in the '70s, had happened to his friend and fellow bassist Sid Vicious. Just a few months before Dee Dee's death, the Ramones had been inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame.

Finally, Johnny: he had always been the true “tough guy” of the group (an ex-Marine and a committed Republican) and, thanks to his determination and discipline, he was the one who had allowed the band to survive for so many years. Along with Joey, he had been the only member who was always a constant presence. In 1984, Johnny had nearly lost his life in an accident: it was this episode that gave its title to an album the band released that year, “Too Tough To Die”. But not even Johnny was truly “too tough to die”: twenty years later, on September 15, 2004, cancer also took the granite-solid guitarist who invented punk's own “wall of sound”.

Marky, the only member still active, keeps the band's tradition alive and, in 2004, oversaw the release of Raw: a DVD containing a wealth of unreleased material, including an entire Ramones concert in Italy from 1980.

Very recently released is It's Alive 1974-1996, a double DVD documenting the band's long career on stage.

(last updated: 10/10/2007)

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In the shadow of punk: the Ramones' nostalgic teen-pop.

Going through their discography, it's easy to notice that every Ramones album always makes room for one or two “softer” tracks, which stand apart from the rest and which it would be inaccurate to label “punk”. Although these are generally excellent tracks, little “pop” gems, this side of their output has often been underrated, left in the shadow of the “punk” songs that made the Ramones famous. In truth, though, the band was never just another punk-rock outfit, and their ability to write slow songs, in some cases even introspective ones, is clear proof of that. There are those who wrongly believe that this “pop” side was merely a kind of post-'77 drift: it's true that starting in 1978 (and through 1981) this inclination became more pronounced, but it should be remembered that pop was already a cornerstone of the band's debut album, with “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”, without which “Ramones” would be missing something and wouldn't be the same album we know.

The Ramones gave birth to a rock avant-garde that, on one hand, aimed to recapture the explosive physicality of original rock'n'roll, while on the other hand it didn't neglect the more "sentimental" side of that music, an expression of the bourgeois anxieties of American teenagers during the '50s and early '60s. After all, hadn't Elvis Presley already, from the second half of the '50s, reconciled the rawness of rock'n'roll with the effusions of his more melodic performances?

To find the most direct ancestors of the songs we're discussing, though, we need to go back to the early '60s: before Beatlemania landed in the States, two brilliant architects of pop music were Phil Spector, with his girl groups, and Brian Wilson, with his celebrated Beach Boys. There are no shortage of parallels to be drawn between the Beach Boys' music and that of the Ramones, starting with the fact that many of the latter's songs betray an obvious "surf" pedigree (their repertoire even includes two covers of songs written by Brian Wilson: "Surf City" and "Surfin' Safari"). With Phil Spector, meanwhile, there was also a direct shared experience: as is well known, in the late '70s the famous producer - inventor of the "wall of sound" and architect of those precious songs he called "little symphonies for the kids" - took the helm for a Ramones album, "End Of The Century" (1980). It was, by far, the best-selling album of their career.

If we now want to get more specific about the Ramones' pop output, we have to immediately recall the mind that embodied it most: Jeffrey Hyman, aka Joey Ramone. Although the tendency didn't always find an easy home within the band, Joey tried to carve out space for it on every one of the four's records: he wrote most of these pop songs and, naturally, it's his voice without which they wouldn't be so distinctive.

The recurring subject in these songs is, as you might imagine, love. However, there's never any risk of falling into the saccharine rhetoric of sentiment, and the reason is simple: these are never mature, adult loves being discussed, but rather adolescent, fragile, naive feelings. Seemingly fleeting, inconsequential romances; and yet, these are precisely the ones that, in their transience, linger longest in each of our memories, as the recollection of a carefree time, as the symbol of an innocence irretrievably lost and constantly sought after. In most cases, in fact, we find ourselves in the realm of memory: the lyrics generally tell of loves lost, or perhaps never even realized... but never forgotten, despite the inexorable passage of time. You could say that the true common thread running through these songs is precisely their relationship with time: it's this conflicted relationship, in fact, that gives some Ramones ballads their bittersweet flavor, their delicate undercurrent of melancholy. This latter aspect might seem surprising in some ways: at first glance, there doesn't seem to be any room for shadows and melancholy in the Ramones' world. And yet, just as the euphoria of the Beach Boys' songs concealed the melancholy of "Pet Sounds", in the same way, it's precisely the "playful" aspects of their music that determine, as the flip side of the coin, the bitter awareness that the game might end sooner or later - or that, perhaps, it already ended a long time ago, but we'd still like to keep pretending otherwise. But for how much longer? The manifesto of these inner conflicts is, from its very title, that "I Don't Want To Grow Up" which, placed at the opening of their final album, seals the imminent end of the Ramones' career.

What follows is a chronological journey - with particular attention to the lyrics - through the Ramones songs in which the band's "pop" leanings are most evident, and, in most cases, the themes mentioned above. The author of these songs is, as noted, almost always Joey Ramone.

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend

(from "Ramones")

It's the fourth track on the first, landmark album "Ramones", as well as the band's first proto-ballad. Spare and essential, like the album cover; basic and disarming, like the concept it expresses:

Sweet little girl

And yet, within those four chords, there's already the latent potential of a "pop" soul that Joey and company would learn to bring out ever more fully on later albums.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

(from "Rocket To Russia")

From its very title, this is the first Ramones song tinged with melancholy. It's a love song, but one of which only a bitter memory now remains. It's not entirely clear what the lyrics are alluding to: perhaps an untimely death? Although the balance between music and lyrics isn't quite there yet, this song does contain a few small innovations: a different guitar tone and what is the first guitar solo in the Ramones' recording career.

Ramona

(from “Rocket To Russia”)

Fresh and rhythmically driven, “Ramona” is the ideal prototype for decades of pop-punk songs to come. On the other hand, the distinctive vocal harmonies – present in many other Ramones songs – are instead a legacy of the vocal groups of the Fifties and Sixties. The Ramones had the remarkable ability to make elements of the past feel current, ferrying them in renewed form to future generations.

Questioningly

(from “Road To Ruin”)

The band's fourth album contains their first top-tier ballad, in which the music becomes (relatively) more complex and the running time longer than usual. This doesn't mean, however, that their usual gift for simplicity is lost or disavowed; on the contrary, it's enhanced by a greater awareness of the means at their disposal, helped along by the arrival of Marky Ramone on drums. This song is marked by the lovely acoustic guitar tone, a different use of the bass, and the fact that, for the first time, a minor-key chord becomes a fully integrated part of a Ramones song.

Lyrically, the words are simple and direct, but far subtler and more introspective than they might appear at first glance: the protagonist recounts a chance encounter with a girl who, looking him in the eye questioningly (“questioningly”), asks him if he isn't by any chance that boy she'd been with... “a long time ago.” But at first, he seems to want to appear detached:

Sì – dissi – sei una ragazza che un tempo potrei forse aver conosciuto

Yet one senses that the protagonist's stance is only a fragile defense against something that, in that moment, troubles him deeply: as if he suddenly realized that time has flown by, and that he's become an adult without noticing. And so, nostalgia sets in:

Avresti dovuto lasciarmi andare

By now, though, it seems there's no time left except for sweet memories and bitter regrets, the only companions of solitude:

Al mattino vado al lavoro in orario

Quando torno a casa

soltanto io, con i miei interrogativi

I Want You Around

(from “Rock’n’roll High School”)

It's part of the soundtrack of the film starring the band in 1979, and it's also the first Ramones song produced by Phil Spector. It's another pleasant acoustic ballad, but far more carefree than the previous one.

Do You Remember Rock’n’Roll Radio?

(da “End Of The Century”)

On this brilliant opening track, Phil Spector's production is immediately front and center: the sound is powerful, overflowing, expressive. Spector's famous “wall of sound” met the Ramones' own “wall of sound”: while the overall results weren't always entirely convincing, this is definitely one of the finest moments of the album and of the band's career. Once again, memory is the song's protagonist; in this case, though, it's not a girl being recalled, but rather the whole atmosphere of an era, with its music and its heroes: Ed Sullivan, Alan Freed, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Lennon, T.Rex (a clear sign of how differently the Ramones related to the past, even the recent past, compared to the English punks). The middle section is the most telling:

Ti ricordi quando eri disteso nel letto

Probably no one can claim to have done more than the Ramones to keep rock from becoming "a thing of the past". And yet nostalgia always seems to be lurking around the corner: perhaps their musical revolution was also a way to exorcise and ward off that rogue nostalgia which, as we've seen, keeps coming back relentlessly no matter what.

Baby, I Love You

(da “End Of The Century”)

It's a cover of a classic hit by the Ronettes, written by Phil Spector: you really can't get more "pop" than this. So much so that this song caused friction not only among fans, but among the band members themselves: even years later, Johnny always considered it too "polished" for their standards. Despite this, the cover doesn't sound bad at all today - if anything, it's even better than the original: Joey's vocal performance in particular is perhaps his finest ever, and it's a shame he didn't lean more often into this melodic register, which seemed to suit him so well.

The KKK Took My Baby Away

(from "Pleasant Dreams")

It's incredible how simplicity can sometimes be an inexhaustible resource without ever feeling predictable: just four chords are enough, and the Ramones' magic instantly takes shape. The key change, then, comes as an unexpected surprise. The lyrics are "dumb" and childlike, almost surreal, and that's exactly what makes the result so enjoyable. "The KKK" is the song that most fully expresses the Ramones' style, as it almost feels like a synthesis of their entire repertoire: it contains rock'n'roll, pop, non-sense, and that teenage "tear-jerking" quality at which Joey and co. were true masters. A genuine textbook song.

7-11

(from "Pleasant Dreams")

"7-11" is, in this writer's opinion, the absolute high point of the Ramones' pop repertoire. In this song, the music, right from the opening chords, conveys a sweetly melancholic and unusual mood, almost dreamlike. The lyrics tell a real story, long and detailed, and fans of the band have often wondered whether it's true or not. In truth, it hardly matters: this song is simply gorgeous and moving, regardless of whether the girl Joey Ramone recalls actually existed or only in his imagination. Yes, because here the imagination truly runs wild, and the Ramones manage to create a musical world that becomes almost "visual": the mood is everyday, teenage, but precisely because of that it's extraordinarily evocative; in some ways, it brings to mind the nostalgic imagery of "American Graffiti": there's talk of gas stations, arcade videogames, dance floors, and kids dancing the "blitzkrieg bop". Naturally, there has to be a girl:

⟦Q1⟧

⟦Q2⟧

⟦Q3⟧

⟦Q4⟧

She was playing Space Invaders

down to the Holiday Inn

But the entrance of the chorus, resolving the initial ambiguity between past and present, introduces the first signs of unease: what is being told belongs to a past now beyond recovery; in the present, only a dimension suspended between dream and memory survives. The riff that accompanies the chorus is a small guitar gem, and it's the leitmotif that defines this song:

We were young and in love

and you're the only girl I've always got on my mind

What follows is another evocation of a happy moment, but one that is now immediately set against the bitter awareness of the present:

We went down to the record fair

but we all know what went wrong

And here's another memory, one last fleeting moment of happiness before the most tragic event returns to the protagonist's consciousness:

And so we went down dancing

make me lose my mind

The ending features a repeated reprise of the chorus which, with the entrance of a counter-melody vocal, evokes a feeling of sad sweetness: it's the most heart-wrenching finale the Ramones ever crafted, in what is truly an extraordinary song, well worth rediscovering.

It's worth noting that this song, too, draws on the early '60s and the girl groups of that era; however, the point of reference here isn't so much Phil Spector as the Shangri-Las, particularly their 1964 hit "Leader Of The Pack": that song, too, told of a tragic death on the road, a theme that in rock had precedents going back to the '50s and whose mythic roots lay in the death of James Dean. The Ramones, however, introduce a significant twist: here, the one who dies on the asphalt isn't a reckless young man, but rather an innocent girl.

My-My Kind Of A Girl

(from "Subterranean Jungle")

It's one of the strongest tracks on an album that, within the band's discography, tends to be overshadowed by others. In the song itself, though, there are truly no shadows at all: in a rare occurrence, a teenage love seems to blossom and come true in the present tense. But is it really reality, or perhaps just a dream...?

She Belongs To Me

(from "Animal Boy")

The lyrics tell of a girl the protagonist is fighting over with another guy. The backing vocals and acoustic guitars make it a successful, musically accomplished ballad, this time thanks to Dee Dee's work.

Bye Bye Baby

(from "Halfway To Sanity")

As the title already suggests, this is the moment of farewell to a girl: we're looking at one of the finest pages ever written by Joey Ramone. Without taking anything away from the Ramones' own merits, it's hard not to notice how this track still betrays the influence of Phil Spector, lucidly reworked in the band's own style: even though several years had passed since their collaboration with the producer, this is perhaps the single most genuinely "Spectorian" song the Ramones ever recorded. Confirming this, there's also a more recent version of "Bye Bye Baby" in which Joey duets with none other than Ronnie Spector (Phil's ex-wife, as well as the legendary leader of the Ronettes). This latter version appears on "She Talks To Rainbows", a mini-album by Ronnie Spector herself that turns out to be a tribute to Joey, since it takes its title from another Ramones song (of which a cover is also included). The record also features a cover of "Don't Worry Baby" by the Beach Boys: a wilsonian masterpiece that, at the time, had been conceived as a tribute and ideal follow-up to the Ronettes' famous "Be My Baby". In this way, through Ronnie, a web of cross-references and mutual tributes is drawn between Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and Joey Ramone. It's proof that Joey could not only hold his own among the great masters of the '60s, but was also able to make their lesson feel current in the age of punk. One could even go so far as to say that "Bye Bye Baby" completes a kind of ideal coming-of-age trilogy, one that was still missing its final chapter: if "Be My Baby" (Ronettes) had celebrated pre-adolescent carefree innocence, and "Don't Worry Baby" (Beach Boys) the restlessness of adolescence, now "Bye Bye Baby" seems to represent the concluding moment, the one that marks the end of youthful illusions and the arrival into adulthood:

Well I guess it’s over and it’s done

Don’t you cry

Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)

(from “Brain Drain”)

In this song too, Joey Ramone tips his hat to Phil Spector and Brian Wilson: both of them, in fact, had been pioneers in the early Sixties of the marriage between rock'n'roll and Christmas carols. This “Merry Christmas” descends directly from those precedents, and in some ways recalls the Beach Boys’ holiday single, “Little Saint Nick”: it even has the classic “sleigh bells” that evoke the Christmas atmosphere. Although the accompanying video leans into more ironic touches, the song itself shows not the slightest trace of irreverence. There's also another version from 2001, which marks Joey Ramone's first work as a solo artist: the sound is acoustic and more polished, the tempo more stretched out, and finally that faint undercurrent of melancholy – which barely stayed hidden in the earlier version – comes more clearly to the surface. Anyone who thinks of the Ramones as merely a “punk” band, and anyone who thinks of Joey as merely a “punk” singer, should reckon with songs like this one, which seem to have precious little to do with punk in its “hard and pure” form.

I Won’t Let It Happen

(from “Mondo Bizarro”)

From a strictly musical standpoint, this is one of the most exemplary Ramones songs: that gossamer-soft guitar, bass and drums locked in perfect cadence, Joey's voice so enveloping… who would guess that these Ramones already had nearly two decades behind them?

She Talks To Rainbows

(from “Adios Amigos!”)

If the Ramones' musical journey had begun by celebrating a “sweet little girl”, now, two decades later, it ends with a “little lost girl”. A sign of the times? Certainly, this is the darkest song in the band's entire catalogue, but also one of the high points of their discography. Unlike their usual fare, though, this isn't a semi-acoustic ballad. The lyrics tell of a solitary girl, lost in her own enchanted world, with whom the protagonist, try as he might, simply cannot connect. Once again – sadly, one of the last times – Joey's voice is deep and deeply moving, proving itself the true “musical instrument” that always made the difference in Ramones songs.

Life’s a Gas

(from “Adios Amigos!”)

Although it isn't exactly a slow song, it feels right to close this journey with a track that could easily have fit on Joey's most recent solo album, “Don’t Worry About Me”: in just a few lines, it sums up his philosophy of life remarkably well, and can already be read as an early spiritual testament. But it's a farewell brimming with vitality, charged with simple, immediate emotions: so it's not just a magnificent song, but a lesson in life too. It's on these notes that we'll keep remembering Joey Ramone, the eternal teenager who gave us so much fun but who, in a song like this, can't help but draw one last tear from us:

So don’t be sad cause I’ll be there

Don’t be sad at all…

Ride the wave of great music

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