You\'re a good man, Joey Ramone

Imagine my surprise when every person I told on that Monday morning that Joey Ramone had died said, "Who?" How could people not know who the great granddaddy of punk rock was (perhaps the John Lennon of punk rock)? The Ramones influenced classic punk acts like the Sex Pistols and the Clash and continue to affect bands like Green Day and Blink-182.\nWhen I first heard that Joey Ramone had died, I didn't realize the gravity of his death. I had been secretly hoping for a reunion. Sadly, Ramone died at 49 from lymphoma, which he had been diagnosed with in 1995. I pictured the tall and lanky Ramone with long black hair, jeans and a leather jacket singing "Blitzkrieg Bop" onstage, fists pumping in the air, knowing I would never experience the excitement firsthand. He always seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and peers like Exene Cervenka of X have attested to his friendly nature as well as his large influence on music and the punk scene.\nBorn in 1951 as Jeff Hyman, he decided to change his name to Joey Ramone in 1974. The rest of the band followed suit, adopting Ramone as a last name (It was an alias Paul McCartney had used.). The Ramones created the energy than infused a nation, beginning at the legendary CBBG, by keeping it simple with three chords and songs about sniffing glue and lobotomies. This simplicity made the magic that was the Ramones. Four kids from a working class town in Queens gave thousands more kids the inspiration to pick up a guitar and do it themselves. Any kid could pick up a guitar and rip through a Ramones song. \nListeners can sing with every Ramones song, usually with a laugh and a smile. Although not the innovators of the chant, the Ramones found an effective element to any song, punk or not. The classic chant in "Blitzkrieg Bop" came from the Ramones' desire to have a sing-along part like the Bay City Roller's "Saturday Night." How charming is that?\nSo, where would we be without Joey and the rest of the Ramones? Kiss the Sex Pistols goodbye and all the people they influenced. There would have been no Clash. No girls bouncing around to Blink-182 as they make fun of boy bands. Green Day could not bring audience members on stage to play an impromptu version of "Blitzkrieg Bop." Rayanne wouldn't have sung "I wanna be sedated" with Jordan Catalano's band only to freak out. There would have been no Rock and Roll Highschool and no follow-up Rock and Roll Highschool Forever featuring Cory Feldman. Despite these two random facts, the nonexistence of the Ramones would have had a heavy impact on music as we know it today. The world would be a very bleak and depressing place.