Rockaway Beach by Ramones

Little in-joke about this tune: Rockaway Beach is a dump. In your parents’ day it was a fun teenage hangout, but by the time the Ramones wrote this anthem in 1977, the Playland amusement park was near closing down, the boardwalk was in disrepair and the place was getting close to the ambience of CBGB.

Coming from Forest Hills, the guys likely spent some quality time trying to sunbathe in this place. Despite the lyric, we also hear that hitching there is impossible.

In any case, this was the Ramones’ second serious attempt at a hit single after “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” flopped miserably. This one inexplicably did too, but it was a longtime concert opener for the band and made the most of Joey Ramone’s longtime love for the Beach Boys.

The Ramones took their name from Paul Ramon, an alias often used by Paul McCartney.

As long as you can manage two minutes of pure stamina, you’re fine with this one. The guitar part is all power chords—heck, Johnny Ramone’s entire career was all power chords—but watch for fast change-ups in the bridge.

The drum part is all about fast snare/kick momentum; once you get this, just imagine that Ramones drummers Tommy and Marky used to do it for 90 minutes at a time.

Sadly, singer Joey and guitarist Johnny died from disease, bassist Dee Dee from misadventure. Still, you can bet that Joey’s still smiling whenever some kids form a good punk band.

“Rockaway Beach” as performed by the Ramones courtesy of Warner Music Group
Douglas Colvin, John Cummings, Thomas Erdelyi, Jeff Hyman
1992 Taco Tunes, Inc. (ASCAP) All Rights Administered By WB Music Corp.
All Rights Reserved. Used by permission