The Ramones were like they were from another world

It’s strange just to think about it but it’s likely that i Ramones they would never have existed – at least in the launch phase – without i Bay City Rollers. An entirely true statement for their debut single, “Blitzkrieg Bop”.

At least according to what was said by the former drummer of the New York band, who passed away in 2014,
Tommy Ramone
: “There was a big hit by the Bay City Rollers at the time called ‘Saturday Night,’ which was a sing-along type of thing. So I thought it would be fun for the Ramones to do that too. And I came up with ‘Hey! I joke ‘hey ho!'”.

“Blitzkrieg Bop”
it was a pure adrenaline rush of just over two minutes, three chords and go. Without rest. It was the song that helped launch the
Ramones
as the embodiment of New York punk. On 4 July 1976 the godfathers of British punk,
Clash, Sex Pistols
And
Damned
they were all present and lined up at the band’s first gig in Britain at

Roundhouse, London
. The leader of the
Buzzcocks
,
Pete Shelley
Of
“Blitzkrieg Bop”
he said it was some kind of call to arms.
Tommy
Ramone
he proudly recalled, “We were truly unique. It’s hard to imagine now, but what we did was truly unlike anything anyone had ever heard before. It was as if we were from another world.”

Tommy Ramone
wrote the song (together with the bassist
Dee Dee Ramone
) as his personal celebration of rock music fans. “It was basically about some guys going to a concert, to unplug and have fun. I happened to pick up Joey Ramone’s guitar, started playing it and the chords came out.” But is the meaning of the song based on a particular memory? Tommy puts it this way: “I’ve seen a lot of great live shows. One of the best was a show hosted by Murray the K at the Brooklyn Fox Theatre, with Joey Dee & the Starliters. They did a long, gospel-influenced version of “Shout” that blew everyone away. I was 13. Another great show was The Who at the Village Theatre, before it became the Fillmore East. They were great.”

The German word in the title led some to think that the song was actually connected to the time of the Second World War, a song against the Nazis given the Jewish origins of the members of
Ramones
. Tommy, however, is quite categorical about it. “It’s all nonsense. The original title of the song was ‘Animal Hop’. Dee Dee came up with ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ because he wanted to Ramonese it. He changed a line. First it was ‘They’re shouting in the back now’, he changed it to ‘Let’s go shoot ’em in the back now’. This may have led to some conspiracy theories, but they are not the original lyrics of the song. Dee Dee put the title on it and that verse, but everything else is mine.”

To say how the four New York boys were doing at the time – who had become the family through playing Ramone: Joey, Tommy, Dee Dee And Johnny Ramone – the self-titled debut album (read the review here), which he had “Blitzkrieg Bop” as the first single, it was recorded at night because recording studio costs were lower. The manufacturer of Sire Records, Craig Leonrecalling that period he declared: “I know exactly how much it cost to make that album, because I was the A&R and I had the cheapest boss in the world (Seymour Stein, ed.). It cost $6,400. There were a lot of rehearsals, but everything was already practically structured. Tommy had a vision of everything about the band. He had the concept and I took care of the next step, transferring it to record and making it a little more unconventional and strident than he had initially thought.”

Leon goes on to say: “The Ramones were total chaos live, but their sound in the studio was still not quite perfect. Some songs were given priority because they were the main tracks, “Blitzkrieg Bop” was one of them. So we had to resort to more production technique. The myth that the band sat in there and did everything themselves is not true. It was largely multi-layered guitar tracks, overdubs and a lot of vocal technology. There’s a lot more to it than you might think.”

Once everything was ready, the question arose of how to get through to radio programming because there was a problem. To explain it is, once again, Tommy Ramone: “The songs were played a little slower than we played them live. Believe it or not, playing fast was something no one had ever done before. So we were worried about radio play. The record company was afraid we were too fast for the audience.”

At the thought of Tommy Ramone joined that of Craig Leon: “I remember we discussed the idea of releasing “Blitzkrieg Bop” as a single. Seymour was worried about the Nazi connotations the word ‘blitzkrieg’ might have, but otherwise it was very much like a Bay City Rollers thing. I thought “Blitzkrieg Bop” might end up on some crazy AM radio station. They felt they would beat the Bay City Rollers. They went into it thinking they would become the biggest band. Joey was a real pop culture fanatic, he loved anything by Herman’s Hermits! I’m pretty sure none of the Ramones were fans of the bands that people thought influenced them. They didn’t listen to the Stooges or the Velvets. They thought they were just old geezers.” Hey! I have! Let’s go!