Least Favorite Ramones Classics

One thing about the early Ramones is, the songs are so incredibly great that it's hard to know which ones I like less than the others, since I can potentially always be talked out of it, by myself or by others. In any case, they are all songs I've sang along to and loved and cranked and cherished for decades. Looking at the first four albums, these are probably the songs that hit me a little less than others (leaving aside the covers, of which "Surfing Bird" is the only one that I don't love unequivocally).

First album: nothing.

Leave Home: Sometimes "Suzy is a Headbanger" seems less great than some of the others. This confuses me, since it is clearly so great and I never would think of skipping it, and I love every second of it when I listen to it. "Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy" has at times been one of my favorites on the album but right now it seems to me to be less than, say, "Commando." The last two ("You're Gonna Kill That Girl" and "You Should Never Have Opened That Door") are also confusingly brilliant but nevertheless maybe slightly inferior to "Swallow My Pride," for instance.

"Oh, Oh, I Love Her So"--I used to like this less than others. A friend recently mentioned it was a favorite of his, and for some reason something clicked after that and now it is my current favorite Ramones song. This is why this question is so confusing. (And I have no doubt it is also uninteresting to anyone but a Ramones maniac. You don't have to keep reading. I'll even do the little page break thing.)






Rocket to Russia


 Sometimes "Sheena" doesn't hit me as much as other things do. I know, it's weird--"Sheena!" And this means I sing along to it and am in a state of complete bliss while it's playing, yet maybe it isn't quite as cool as "Locket Love."

"We're a Happy Family" has been a favorite at times but maybe not right now. "I Wanna Be Well" is clearly a masterpiece (despite what you may think from the last few posts, I do not use this term lightly) but nevertheless--is it as good as "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?" See what I mean? This is a tough question.

Road to Ruin


For some reason I am not always bowled over by "I Just Want to Have Something to Do." Or, rather, I am bowled over by it, but not as much as I am by "Don't Come Close."

"Bad Brain" has actually been leaving me cold lately--this is the first song I would say that about, none of the songs I mentioned above ever, ever leave me cold, even if I am trying to introduce some differentiation in the greatness of the early albums by throwing them under a very small, lightweight bus. Isn't there something called a "microbus"? That's what it would be--a bus you need a microscope to see. But "Bad Brain" may be a slightly non-classic song, the first in the Ramones' career if it's true! Even here, though, I could be talked out of it, and anyway it occurs to me that if this were on Brain Drain or Adios Amigos I'd be falling all over myself about how great it is. I think the main thing is I don't like the chimy percussion interlude.