1-2-3-4! The Ramones, an American rock band first formed in 1974, are widely regarded as the first Punk Rock group.Their influence on the Punk Rock movement was musical rather than political. While the Sex Pistols or The Clash's lyrics focused on sticking it to the man, The Ramones prefered to talk about common juvenile themes, like love, drugs, alienation and cheap horror movies. In contrast to the luxuriant symphonic rock that was dominant at the time, they wrote very simple, very fast songs. Their other schtick was to adopt pseudonyms; all the various members of the band went by "[First Name] Ramone" even though none of them were related, and (for that matter) none of them had that surname in real life. While their influence on rock music is widespread (one magazine ranked them the second-greatest band ever, behind only The Beatles), their records never sold well and they toiled on in relative obscurity for many years before finally giving up the ghost in 1996.In an all too bittersweet way, the band are now arguably far more famous and are given more credit now than when they ever were performing, and after three of the original members have died.
Tropes Related to the Band
Album Title Drop: In "Do You Remember Rock n' Roll Radio" for End of the Century.
Cover Version: The entirety of Acid Eaters consists of this. Further, the band covered their 60's pop influences throughout their career. On their very first album, otherwise all original material, the boys included a cover of "Let's Dance" (Chris Montez), and their last album started with Tom Waits' "I Don't Want to Grow Up". Other notable covers included:
"California Sun" (The Rivieras)
"Do You Wanna Dance?" (Bobby Freeman)
"Needles and Pins" (The Searchers)
"Surfin' Bird" (Trashmen)
... and two of their most unusual covers, the theme for the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon, and Motörhead's tribute song to the Forest Hill Four themselves, "R.A.M.O.N.E.S."
Dead Artists Are Better: They kept touring and recording relentlessly, but never got much wealth or recognition for it... until they disbanded and three of four members had died.
Downer Ending: On so many levels. From all accounts, Joey and Johnny never did resolve their differences. The band never did achieve the big hits they were chasing for 20 years. The band were thoroughly dissatisfied with how their last show came off. Joey succumbed to lymphoma in 2001, Dee Dee died of a heroin overdose just over a year later, and Johnny died in 2004 from prostate cancer.
"Pinhead" was based on the movie Freaks, with the "Gabba Gabba Hey!" chant being an adaptation of the "Gooboo Gabba Gooboo Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us" chant from the film.
Heavy Meta: "Rock and Roll High School" and "Rock and Roll Radio"
"I Want" Song: Many songs contain the phrase "I Wanna" or "I Don't Wanna."
"I Wanna Be Sedated," "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement," "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You," "I Don't Wanna Be Learned/I Don't Wanna Be Tamed," "Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy," "I Wanna Be Well," "I Wanna Live."
Partial Exceptions: "I Just Want To Have Something To Do," "I Wanted Everything," "I Don't Want You," "I Want You Around," "We Want The Airwaves"
Occasionally, as noted in the covers above, they would ask "Do YOU Wanna Dance?"
These also appear within the lyrics, for example, in "Pet Sematary":
I don't wanna be buried In a pet sematary I don't want to live my life again
Sequel Song: "The Return of Jackie and Judy," for one.
Shout Out: The name Ramone was one, taken from "Paul Ramone," the pseudonym Paul McCartney used to check into hotels during The Beatles' touring days.
John Cusack's character Jake Anderson is wearing a Ramones T-shirt in a scene from Must Love Dogs.
And one Teenage Bottlerocket song has the singer giving a girl his Ramones sweatshirt.
Also, one of Sylar's victims in Heroes wore a Ramones T-shirt - which Sylar later wears to pass off as the guy just before Mohinder comes to pay him a visit.
Single Stanza Song: They were quite partial to this one. Examples include "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "Listen To My Heart," "It's A Long Way Back."
Stage Names: Taken by all of the group's members. None of them are related.
Studio Chatter: usually this just consists of Dee Dee counting in songs in his distinctive way. However, "Danger Zone" has a little bit more than that:
Take That: To a lot of Album-Oriented, Progressive, baroque, guitar-solo filled music that dominated most of The Seventies.
"Censorshit" is one to Moral Guardians (specifically calling out Tipper Gore by name), saying they're suppressing free speech and should focus on more important problems instead.
They didn't spare each other. Joey wrote "The KKK Took My Baby Away" as a shot at the right-wing Johnny for stealing the liberal Joey's girlfriend.
Which could be attributed to Johnny Ramone's hatred of guitar solos. They were originally started because they "had gotten bored with everything else" and described '70 rock as overextended jams.
Word Salad Lyrics: Typically the songs make some general sense, but sometimes there's some... odd insertions (like the whole "Do you like bananas?" bit on "This Ain't Havana").
Could be a reference to "Havana Affair" from their first album.
PT-boat on the way to Havana I used to make a living, man Pickin' the banana
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