I Dreamed I Saw Joey Ramone Last Night - punk rock singer

Reason, August, 2001 by Nick Gillespie, Brian Doherty

The attempt to appropriate cultural figures for political ends is nothing new. But it remains a dreary exercise at best, reducing complex and often joyous creative expression to grim simplicity.

In the case of Joey Ramone and the Ramones, it seems particularly desperate and off-base. Even granting for the sake of argument that Joey believed fervently in full public financing of elections, a $10 minimum wage, and the vanguard of the proletariat, his band's enduring appeal had nada to do with a cliched progressive political agenda.

The Ramones, who cut their first LP in 1976 and broke up 20 years and more than a dozens albums later, were avatars of self-expression, taking and giving pleasure by creating the music they wanted to hear even before they knew how to play their instruments or write songs.

Along with that came a vividly antinomian attitude toward authority and a remarkably inclusive attitude toward misfits of all stripes. (One of their best-known songs, "Pinhead," openly borrows a line--"We accept you, we accept you, one of us, one of us"--from Tod Browning's 1932 film Freaks.) The band's example inspired thousands of imitators who took off in their own idiosyncratic, highly personal directions.

There's a political implication to such activity, to be sure, but it has precious little to do with what some commentators insisted Joey Ramone ought to be remembered for.

Nick Gillespie is REASON's editor-in-chief Brian Doherty is a REASON associate editor and owner of Cherry Smash Records.