I Wanna Be Sedated…The Ramones

I was a kid in Cleveland, Ohio when the rumbling started three chords, a buzzing sound, a splaaaahhhhh vocal that went everywhere at once ultimately landing nowhere it was pop music perverted revved up on reds, frantically thrashing about being poor, rebellious and judged it wore bangs and a leather jacket it was danger, albeit benign danger, with a beat and it could be found in that ultimate forbidden paradise: record revolution on coventry, where my parents cringed every time the magnet's pull lured me there the place smelled funny, standing there in my knee socks and plaid skirt trying to seem tough enough to not get slagged or slighted for my uniform inhaling the incense and musk and patchouli, hoping not to cough bopping my head back and forth, ponytail slamming in time, maybe cracking my gum and flipping through the record racks as music by the ramones, the buzzcocks, the deadboys and devo blared i was so young they were so young and all that rage felt like euphoria and now the quiet feels like a roar the ramones never became u2 but without them, there'd've been no pistols, no stiff, no punk, no wave -- not even that giant window display of elvis costello in day-glo black lite paint that freaked you in and astounded you with brilliant songwriting certainly there was a sweetness to the ramones' glue-sniffing turbo-prop high jinks that disarmed heck, it even charmed and that was the place where the onramp lifted up and off and took you to a place where it was all loud, euphoric and charged somewhere, i hope joey's got a good seat + a cold beer gabba gabba hey! -- Holly Gleason

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