The Ramones loved King’s books and were all dyed-in-the-wool horror/kitsch/trash movie and culture fans, so it was the perfect marriage of sound and vision. What, we were supposed to let fucking Dokken keep writing slasher movie themes? The film was based on a Stephen King novel, and he was an unabashed fan of the brudders. Pet Semetary is a goofy clunker of a horror flick, but the Ramones surprise inclusion on the soundtrack not only served as a much-needed reminder that the band was still alive and well, but re-routed horror fans back to the punk/garage genre that embraced all things creepy throughout the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. A great homage to their 60’s roots and one of the many highlights of 1978’s Road to Ruin. Everybody’s got a fave version – Cher’s is amazing, incidentally – but the Ramones may have captured the awkward teenage longing better than just about anybody. It has been covered many times over the years by everyone from Tom Petty to Stevie Nicks. Not a Ramones original, Needles and Pins is a chewy wad of bubblegum originally (co-)written by Sonny Bono in 1963 and first recorded by Jackie DeShannon a year later. Mostly it’s a jumble of jumpy, paranoid thoughts set to John’s chainsaw riff, but the “rules” count-off is so catchy and so fun to recite – “Fourth rule is… eat kosher salami!” – that it’s gotta make any top-10 Ramones list. ![]() Who knows what it was really about? Dee Dee wrote it and he grew up in Germany, so he probably thought about fascism a lot, especially with a bowl-cut tyrant like Johnny Ramone at the helm, and anybody growing up in the 70’s certainly contended with the Vietnam conflict and its aftermath. From Ramones’ second album, 1977’s Leave Home.
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