Ramones (album) - Compositions

Compositions

Ramones features several themes including Nazism, violence, male prostitution and drug use. Johnny said that when writing the lyrics they weren't "trying to be offensive." "Blitzkrieg Bop", the album's opening track, was written by Tommy Ramone. Tommy originally named the track "Animal Hop" but, after Dee Dee reviewed the lyrics, they changed the lyrics as well as the name. As put by Tommy the song's original concept was "about kids going to a show and having a good time". The piece begins with an instrumental which lasts about twenty seconds. At the twentieth second the guitar and bass stop, marking Joey's first line: "Hey Ho, Let's Go!". The bass and guitar gradually rebuilds and according to Nicholas Rombes it is "in full–force again." The piece resolves by replaying what is played at seconds twenty-two to thirty–three. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic described it as a "three-chord assault".

"Beat on the Brat" was said by Joey to have origins relating to the upper class of New York City.

When I lived in Birchwood Towers in Forest Hills with my mom and brother. It was a middle-class neighborhood, with a lot of rich, snotty women who had horrible spoiled brat kids. There was a playground with women sitting around and a kid screaming, a spoiled, horrible kid just running around rampant with no discipline whatsoever. The kind of kid you just want to kill. You know, 'beat on the brat with a baseball bat' just came out. I just wanted to kill him. —Joey Ramone,

Dee Dee, however, explained that the song was about how "Joey saw some mother going after a kid with a bat in his lobby and wrote a song about it."

"Judy Is a Punk" was written around the same time as "Beat on the Brat". Joey had explained that the first line came about after he walked by Thorny Croft, an apartment building that Joey said was "where all the kids in the neighborhood hung out on the rooftop and drank." The second line came about after walking down a different street. The lyrics refer to two juvenile offenders in Berlin and San Francisco and their possible deaths at the conclusion of the song. The song is fictional, as announced Nicholas Rombes who describes this meta-perspective in his analysis of the album as "both line in a song and song line across a line in a song." "Judy Is a Punk" is the original album's shortest song, being one minute and 32 seconds.

"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", the slowest and the only romantically colored piece on the album, was solely written by Tommy. The text has themes of irony, humor and the depiction of violence. The piece pays homage to love songs in pop music acts of the 1960s. Guitarist Johnny Ramone used a Fender Stratocaster instead of his usual guitar, the electric Mosrite Ventures II. "Chain Saw" opens with the sound of a running circular saw and was influenced by the 1974 horror film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre directed by Tobe Hooper. At nearly 180 beats per minute "Chain Saw" has the fastest tempo among the album's songs and, according to Nicholas Rombes, is the most "home-made" sounding.

"Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue" consists of four lines of minimalist lyrics which are about youthful boredom and inhaling the solvent vapors contained in glue. On the question of the authenticity of the text, Dee Dee said in an interview: "I hope no one thinks we really sniff glue. I stopped when I was eight ." Dee Dee also explained that its concept comes from adolescent trauma. After several pieces by the Ramones, whose song's titles begin with "I Don't Want to ...", Tommy said that "Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue" is known as the first positive song from the album. The song was the inspiration for the name of one of the first, and most famous, punk fanzines Mark Perry's Sniffin' Glue first published in 1976.

"I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" was inspired by horror movies. It is a minimalist piece, the entire text containing only three lines, and is based on only three major chords. With a playing time of two minutes and 35 seconds it is the longest piece on the album. "Loudmouth" has six major chords and is a harmonically complex piece. The song's text is — depending on the reading and punctuation — just a single row or four very brief lines. "Havana Affair"'s concept deals with the comic strip Spy vs. Spy of the Cuban-born illustrator Antonio Prohias. At about 170 beats per minute "Loudmouth" and "Havana Affair" proceed at nearly the same tempo.

"Listen to My Heart" is the first of many songs in the repertoire of the Ramones voicing an ironic and pessimistic perspective with a failing or already failed relationship. The song "53rd and 3rd" is about "Dee Dee turning tricks" said Johnny. The song's text was written solely by Dee Dee and is about a male prostitute ("rent boy") who is vainly waiting on the street in Midtown Manhattan, at the corner of Fifty-third Street (53rd Street) and Third Avenue. When the prostitute gets a customer he kills him with a razor to prove he is not a homosexual. The authenticity and autobiographical coloring of lyrics exist contradictory statements by both the author and by his contemporaries. In some interviews with Dee Dee the piece is described as autobiographical. "The song speaks for itself," Dee Dee commented in an interview, "everything I write is autobiographical and written in a very real way, I can't even write."

"Let's Dance" is a cover version of the Chris Montez composition. "I Don't Want to Walk Around With You" consists of only two lines of text and three major chords. It is one of the earliest common compositions of the Ramones, and, according to Johnny Ramone, the song was originally named "I Do not Want to Get Involved With You", and is the very first sample of their first tape written at the beginning of 1974.

The album's final track, "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World", refers to a Hitler Youth member. Seymour Stein complained about the song and insisted that the track was offensive, contending that the lyrics "I'm a Nazi baby, I'm a Nazi yes I am," could not be published on a record. Before they released the album they came up with alternate lyrics for the line that read "I'm a shock trooper in a stupor, yes I am." They went with the alternate lyrics and released the album, and the song was often the group's closer at live shows.

Several songs from the album feature backing vocals from several different guests. Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone's brother, sang backing vocals on "Judy Is a Punk", "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", and in the bridge of "Blitzkrieg Bop". Drummer Tommy Ramone sang backing vocals on "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You", "Judy Is a Punk", and during the bridge of "Chainsaw". The album's engineer, Rob Freeman, sang lead vocals for the final refrain of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend". The album's length is twenty-nine minutes and four seconds and features fourteen tracks.