Album: Ramones
Year: 1976
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
Like other great opening tracks from world-changing debut albums — “Good Times, Bad Times,” “Just Like Honey” — it’s all there from the very beginning: that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
In one channel, there’s Johnny Ramone, his mighty right hand smashing his guitar at what felt like an unbelievable speed, while in the other channel Dee Dee Ramone pummeling his bass in unison, while Tommy Ramone, who wasn’t even really a drummer, reduced the beat to just the basics — hi-hat, kick and snare, with the occasional cymbal smash for color — over which Joey Ramone sang in his weird yet tuneful voice.
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
You can talk about The Stooges and the MC 5 and the New York Dolls, or you can talk about The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Buzzcocks, but this is where it all began. Punk fucking rock. Four weird-ass outsiders, figuring out how to make everything old new again, with a rallying cry for the ages, as his band drops out and rejoins him.
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
They’re formin’ in a straight line
They’re goin’ through a tight wind
The kids are losin’ their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop
They’re pilin’ in the back seat
They’re generatin’ steam heat
Pulsatin’ to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
Of course, this was all calculated as fuck. It had to be, in order to work: every single note exactly where it was supposed to be, I’m mean check out the clipped clarity of how Joey sang “bop” not even really bothering to finish the word. Utter and total precision: weirdly enough that was what the Ramones shared with the art rock bands they were rebelling against. The difference was that they used their precision to roar through short, catchy and hilarious songs.
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
Hey, ho, let’s go
Shoot ’em in the back now
What they want, I don’t know
They’re all revved up and ready to go
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
With Dee Dee doing “ooooooooooooohs” in the background, that chorus shows just how much pure pop was mixed up in their insanely fast tempos and crazy loud guitar.
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
Why is this Ramones song different from all other Ramones songs?
It’s their opening salvo. The first shot in a career that would last for over two decades, and a blueprint for much that would follow.
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
Also, it’s the only Ramones song I’ve ever sung onstage as part of a band. This would be late 1980 / early 1981, when I was singing for a covers band called Feedback. (Which, BTW, was an early name for the nascent U2 just a couple of years prior.) And while most of the songs we did were Stones / Who / Kinks / Beatles, we also did “Blitzkreig Bop,” which of course fit in just fine. Give the technology of the early 1980s — my only recording device was a Panasonic portable cassette recorder with a condensor mic — no tapes of this band actually exist. Which is just as well, while I’m dead curious.
Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
“Blitzkrieg Bop”
“Blitzkrieg Bop” live in London, 1977
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