If there's one thing I've always dreaded knowing its imminent arrival, it's that one day I will grow up in a world where my musical heroes won't be here, tangible, for the children to see; they will simply be relics along with Rimbaud and Fromm, chores for future generations to consume to appease the elders who dictate what we consider as 'art'. The recent news that Tommy Ramone had passed, the last surviving member of the Ramones, I felt more sobered than ever.
It was now, it seemed,
that the musical heroes had begun to fall. At a relatively young age, how can I cope knowing that when I reach the current age of the musicians I hold dear they will all be footnotes of rock? It's still difficult going through the exhilarating and youthful pop of
Ramones knowing that the people who made it aren't actually walking and talking like you and me. But then the iconoclastic punk rockers were never built for this; do you think when Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Tommy sat down and started writing "53rd & 3rd" and "Havana Affair" with pop culture and alienation in mind they did it knowing someday they'd be dead?
Fuck no! If the Ramones deserve any funeral, it's listening to this prime slice of pop music, forgetting about your problems and all that
shit that adults have to bother with. Hey Ho, Let's Go.
R.I.P. 'The Ramones'
Joey Ramone, 1951-2001
Johnny Ramone, 1948-2004
Dee Dee Ramone, 1951-2002
Tommy Ramone, 1949-2014
