Cretin Hopping With the Surfin' Bird at Rockaway Beach

Album: Ramones, Rocket to Russia, 1977 (dub)

Best Cover Track: "Surfin' Bird"

Best Original Track: "We're a Happy Family"

Lasting Memory: Somewhere in my father's extensive collection of stuff he just never got around to throwing away, there exists a videotape shot during the course of a celebratory family dinner in 1986 or 1987. On that video, I'm shown wearing my Boy Scout uniform and singing, along with my much younger brother, "We're a Happy Family."

To drive home the enormity of this impropriety, here are the lyrics to that song:

We're a happy family
We're a happy family
We're a happy family
Me mom and daddy

Siting here in Queens
Eating refried beans
We're in all the magazines
Gulpin' down thorazines

We ain't got no friends
Our troubles never end
No Christmas cards to send
Daddy likes men

Daddy's telling lies
Baby's eating flies
Mommy's on pills
Baby's got the chills

I'm friends with the President
I'm friends with the Pope
We're all making a fortune
Selling Daddy's dope

So, so wrong and untrue. We never lived in Queens.

But, lord help me, I've always misheard "We're a Happy Family" as a short ode to an actually happy family, and not as the nightmare the Ramones obviously intended. I'm not sure why, though, especially since Rocket to Russia is rife with songs that definitely are pleasant recollections of youth and hearth.

"Rockaway Beach" really is about a nice daytrip with the folks. "Cretin Hop" and "Do You Wanna Dance?" really are about wanting to have some fun at the high school dance. "Surfin' Bird" really is about, um, nothing. Sure is fun, though. And that bird seemed to be the word, or so I heard.

Joey, Johnny, Dee, and Tommy did make their first successful attempts at working on the darker side on Rocket to Russia, though. "I Wanna Be Well" and "I Can't Give You Anything" aren't about happy families, so good for them getting right their depiction of wrong things.

Up Next: The Ramones, End of the Century, 1980