Two weeks away on holiday with no music*, I just want something pure and beautifully basic to guide me back to the mainline. Take it away Dee Dee.
Unh-Duh-Tree-Fuh!!
How do you follow up the best LP ever made? you Leave Home, that’s how. The critical consensus about Leave Home is that it just serves up an inferior helping of the first LP before they made another great one. Screw the critical consensus, Leave Home is only inferior to the debut by the width of a diet Rizla, if that.
Given a comparative fortune to mix and record their second LP** the band went all out for a clearer, louder sound, refining some of their edges in the process in their doomed quest for big hits and commercial success. In came Tony Bongiovi as producer and Ed Stasium as engineer, Tommy Ramone co-produced.
The sound is great, the band sound honed and tight, their unique simplicity and sincerity is all present and correct, Arturo Vega designed their immortal logo for the back cover, but still it didn’t take; Leave Home did not perform as as well as Ramones. Two things Johnny^ just couldn’t seem to comprehend were just how far ahead of their times the Ramones were and just how gloriously weird they were.
Leave Home opens with, of course, the Charlie Manson referencing ‘Glad To See You Go’, which I want as the last song at my funeral. I love the whole armoured girl group sound they conjure here, they never sounded more like a pissed off Beach Boys. Walloping straight into ‘Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment’, is a shudderingly good change up, the lyrics of which still make me smile 31 years after I first heard them.
‘I Remember You’ is another beauty with the band in full Shangri-Las mode, Joey meaning every word, heart-meltingly so. The 60’s teen dreaming of ‘Oh Oh I Love Her So’ is just pure airwave filler, well in a better more meaningful world than this one, maybe.
Wondering what I’m doing tonight
I’ve been in the closet and I feel alright
Ran out of Carbona, Mom threw out the glue
Ran out of paint and roach spray too
It’s TV’s fault I am this way
Mom and pop wanna put me away
Being a bad boy the anthem to huffing cleaning products that is ‘Carbona Not Glue’ is another favourite. It’s an absolute rock solid well worked out tune, shame it got hurriedly shuffled off the LP for legal reasons; my 1987 re-release doesn’t mention it on the back sleeve and it has been omitted from the lyric sheet, but it is present and correct where it should be. Suzy can wait.
You know ‘Pinhead’ and ‘Suzy Is A Headbanger’, I’ve heard them so many trillion times that it was a treat to really listen to them again properly tonight. The ‘Gabba, Gabba’ chant and sound affects are still genius whichever way you slice them, ‘D-U-M-B / Everyone’s accusing me’.
Leave Home hits a real high for me with ‘Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy’, there’s just something in the disconnect between the regret of the lyrics and the guitar tone that thrills me. I absolutely adore ‘Swallow My Pride’ too, Ramones out-Seekers-ing the Seekers. I read today that it was about discontent with their progress/contract, I prefer to stick to thinking about it as a love song.
The cover of ‘California Sun’ manages to sound like sunny days on a blanket for me, for reasons I choose not to disclose^^ and I love the daft militarism of ‘Commando’ with its list of rules, Joey’s voice being possibly the least military thing I can think of softening everything it touched, however nihilistic or violent the lyrics.
The final double kiss off on Leave Home is no match for their previous LP, but there again neither is anything else in recorded history so that’s a waste of all 31 words you have just read. The horror schlock of ‘You’re Gonna Kill That Girl’ and ‘You Should Never Have Opened That Door’ are tremendous fun in their own right and send us hurtling out into the runout groove happy and demented.
Leave Home is a great listen, just a notch down from life-changing but certainly far better than just being the speed bump en route to Rocket To Russia that it gets credited as being. It is a dynamic, focused beastie in its own right. Sure the Ramones didn’t go too far away when they left home, but that was the whole point. They got faster, more efficient and burnished their sound.
But you should probably listen to someone less partisan than I. I love Ramones, always have and always will. Take it away Joey.
You gotta go go go go
Goodbye glad to see you,
Go go go go, goodbye glad to see you
Go go go go goodbye!
1085 (down).
PS: post title based on my mishearing of the lyrics of ‘Carbona Not Glue’, that I realise I’ve had wrong now for 31 years. Ah well, too late to change what I sing now and after all, it is Dee Dee’s fault I am this way!
*no electricity, indoor plumbing, or culture at all; that’s Scotland for ya.
**$10k as opposed to $6.4k.
^their maniacal driver for commercial success.
^^a gentleman never kisses and tells; so don’t worry Sharon.
If the Ramones are the cause of anything in your life, you are at least living that part correctly. onetwothreefour!
The perfect band.
Loud, fast, punker, could count to four… yup! 😉
Exactly the kind of music to get you back in the groove. I know what you mean.
It was just like plugging back into the mains.
Talking of headbangers, are you excited about the new Public Service Broadcasting album?
I am. I’m possibly going to see them in my native land in November too. Have you pre-ordered the new one? I haven’t got around to it yet.
Fuck analysis, let’s rock!
Spoken like a true CBT dude.
Gabba Gabba Hey!
No music in Scotland? Do you mean you didn’t participate in the compulsory 12noon playing of ‘Princes Of The Universe’? Fucking tourists!
Ahh, that’s what that racket was! An interesting definition of the word ‘music’ there. As far as Scotland is concerned for me it’s Harry Lauder or nothing.
Ah, that’s because you are a foreigner. Tall Poppy Syndrome precludes Scottish people from listening to any Scottish people that have had the temerity to succeed in making music.
Ahh, TPS, I get it.
I just enjoyed Lauder’s frequent beefs with Biggie Smalls, 2Pac, Snoop Dogg and Eric Morcambe in the press. Mind you when the shootings started it as less funny.
Yeah, Lauder is renowned here for his lethal shizzle
When he roamed a MF-ing gloaming, it stayed fucking roamed.
Wasn’t his lethal shizzle corkscrew shaped?
No-one has stayed alive long enough to report on its shape.
Gotta love the rock’n’roll muppets. I’m rather fond of this album. Would have been good if the actual muppets did some Ramones covers?
During a brief stint fronting a band, we would sing a song about Burton’s Wagon Wheels and I’d often get the bemused audience to chant ‘Wagga Wagga hey!’ Not ever sure they got it, but they always got a few Wagon Wheels that we lobbed into the crowd. Oh happy cheapo confectionery days!
I think the Muppets refused and argued Ramones were far too unrealistic and cartoon-y. I love the wagga-wagga-Hey story.
I hear they then approached the Fraggles… but they couldn’t work together as they were too fucked up on fraggle crack. Man, that’s a bad rock to be on.
The Ramones were the „freaks of rock’n’roll“ and they had an extraordinary sense for irresistible melodies. I like „Leave Home“ because it has influences from surf, beat, rock’n’roll and 60s pop.
I thought this was going to be about Dee Dee’s solo rap stuff…
I heard a bit, once …
Me too – it’s pretty infamous.
Sure, Sure blame a Ramone. Don’t let Lemmy hear ya talk like that!
Ha! I saw ‘Head on the 1916 tour and they did an incredible version of ‘Ramones’, I genuinely haven’t found anything to be as happy about since! (sorry wife, children etc)
That is a great track. A buddy of mine had a DVD from around 91 or so of MH playing that track at a 100 mph and its done in under 2 minutes..maybe this is the one…
https://youtu.be/Sjalt83wU-A
You’re right, the Ramones one, two, three, go style was way ahead of their time.
They changed music for me when I first heard them, everything else was just too slow after that.
I don’t think any of these songs are on that one “best of” I have!
Hi fella. Not even Pinhead or Suzy Is a Headbanger? if not take it back to the shop and demand your money back bnecause it is clearly not the best of!
I git into them because a girlfriend had the Ramones Mania comp – that was a great one.