The innocuous lyrics Tommy Ramone originally wrote for ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’
Punk has its roots in Eddie Cochran’s chugging riffs and, later, the garage rock work of The Kingsmen, The Who, and The Kinks. A sound of unrefined urgency and Pete Townshend’s lyric, “I hope I die before I get old”, seemed to define the genre before several crucial years of gestation in Iggy Pop’s lacerated ribcage. When punk finally arrived in full force, it was New York City’s Ramones who planted the flag.
Although Ramones didn’t coin the term “punk”, we generally regard them as the first pure punk band. Their style and aesthetic weren’t too dissimilar to The Stooges’, but somehow, Ramones made all that came before them prototypical. While The Stooges had the riotous rock ‘n’ roll attitude, Ron Asheton was far too virtuosic a guitarist to be a mere punk musician. Still, his ongoing influence certainly earns him appreciation as one of the most essential punk guitar architects.
In an age saturated by the whimsical complexities of prog-rock, Ramones took rock ‘n’ roll back to the basics with bold, provocative three-chord songs. The band opened its discography on a memorable note with the beautifully controversial single ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’. The song has been somewhat marred by incessant use in TV commercials in recent years, including those of AO, a company that sells white goods in the UK.
Despite the disarming TV commercials, ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ stands up as an energising jig and, by some calculations, the first ever pure punk single. Clearly inspired by The Stooges’ propensity to wear Nazi uniforms onstage and Iggy’s militant lyrics like, “I’m a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm / I’m a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb,” the song picked up on the shock factor trend.
The peppy refrain “Hey ho, let’s go!” supposedly alludes to the fast pace of the Nazi’s Blitzkrieg invasions during World War II. Under the command of Adolf Hitler, soldiers on the German front lines would take an amphetamine-based supplement called Pervitin, which kept them on high alert during relentless and fearless midnight advances. Ramones’ song, containing lines like “They’re forming in a straight line,” “The kids are losing their minds,” and “Pulsating to the back beat,” seems to compare the energy of a concert hall to that of “lightning warfare”.
The controversial song succeeded in alienating prudish parents and invigorating an unsettled youth. This punk virus soon spread to the UK, where the Sex Pistols’ anarchistic outlook gave haughty conservatives plenty to worry about. However, what became one of the most influential punk anthems began life in the most innocuous of guises.
Although Dee Dee wrote most of Ramones’ lyrics, drummer Tommy Ramone notched up a few early credits and came up with the idea of ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’; only, when he first wrote it, he titled it ‘Animal Hop’, hoping to create a chant for the band along the lines of Rufus Thomas’s line “High, low, tipsy toe” in ‘Walking the Dog’. “I wrote ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, only I called it ‘Animal Hop’, and it was too good to be rejected,” Tommy told Legs McNeil in 2003. “But it wasn’t about Nazis. It wasn’t about gassing Jews. It was about kids going to a show and having a good time.”
Tommy remembered that his original lyrics weren’t too dissimilar to the finished product. “They’re forming in a straight line / They’re going through a tight wind / The kids are losing their mind / The Animal Hop,” he quoted, adding, “I also had a line that went, ‘Hey Ho, Let’s Go, they’re shouting in the back now.'” Isn’t it astonishing what changing a couple of words can do to a punk song?