LE BLOG MUSIQUE-AL

Every week, Rich Terfry looks back in our Rear-view Mirror at a great song from the good ol’ days. This week, The Ramones and "I Wanna Be Sedated."

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The Ramones are widely regarded as the first punk rock group. Though never commercially successful, few bands have been more influential.

They formed in Queens, New York in 1974. When they first began playing live around New York City, the created an immediate buzz. No one had seen anything like it before. The members of the band were fairly inept as musicians, but their stage presence, energy and originality more than made up for that. They seemed to most more of a street gang than a rock band.

When their first album was released in 1976, critics lost their marbles. All the top critics in the United States hailed them as the greatest band in the universe. But for the most part, they were ignored by radio and the public at large.

They found their greatest success in the UK. On their first visit to London, members of The Clash and The Sex Pistolsattended their show. It's widely acknowledged that this fateful night set the UK punk scene in motion.

It was on one of these early trips to London that one of the band's best known songs, "I Wanna Be Sedated" was written. The band was worn out, banged up and bored when they found themselves in London at Christmas time in 1977. SingerJoey Ramone was excited to be in the big city, but disappointed that everything was shut down for the holidays. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, he and his bandmateDee Dee found themselves in their hotel room watching the war movie The Guns of the Navarone, starring Gregory Peck on television.

Out of that boredom, he began writing the song that would go on to become a rock and roll classic. The song has since been covered by everyone from The Go-Go's to Bruce Springsteen.