24. THE RULERS: "I Want My Ramones Records Back"
Heh. With a title like that, "I Want My Ramones Records Back" simply had to be on a This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation. It just took us a while to work things out.
Long before The Rulers recorded this track, the song was a phantom, an elusive Carbona-huffin' will o' the wisp. It's one of the best tributes to the magic of The Ramones I've ever heard--rivaling Motorhead's "Ramones" and Amy Rigby's "Dancing With Joey Ramone"--but I barely heard it originally. It was a hint, a rumor, and little more than that. Stealth might not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Ramones novelty records, but it applies in this case.
I first heard of the song from its author, Noah DeRule. Noah was in a Phoenix band called The Orphans, and The Orphans recorded the original version of "I Want My Ramones Records Back." I can't even remember when that was. But Noah contacted me to make me aware of the track, possibly to consider for airplay on TIRnRR. Maybe. I don't remember. All I remember for sure is that I could listen to the song via the great 'n' powerful internet, but I didn't know of any way to save a copy of it. Eventually, the link to the song faded to gray, and "I Want My Ramones Records Back" was relegated to the dustbin of my memory.
Fortunately, I have a very good memory. Um...sometimes.
The song haunted me for years. I didn't make any permanent note of the group's name, nor that of its writer, but the song itself was seared into my brain. I tried to track down more info. Google. Chat groups. Direct inquiries to pop music peers. I was a rock 'n' roll Mr. Keen, tracer of lost pop tunes. The trail led to Singapore--no, I'm not kidding--and went cold. Man, this never happens to Mr. Keen!
Never quite gave up the search, though. And eventually, a combination of YouTube, Reverbnation, and Facebook led me back to Noah DeRule.
When The Orphans broke up, Noah switched coasts and joined The Rulers in Richmond, Virginia. I'm not sure of the precise timeline, but Noah's travels also took him much, much farther East, including residence in Vietnam. I think he's back in Arizona now. Or, y'know, Metropolis maybe, or Stars Hollow. Boy gets around.
Somewhere in there, The Rulers recorded a new version of "I Want My Ramones Records Back," its title now truncated to "Ramones." Noah sent me a copy, and I was in Cretin Hop Heaven. Except for the addition of one FCC-unfriendly word, The Rulers' "Ramones" perfectly matched my memory of The Orphans' "I Want My Ramones Records Back."
In assembling TIRnRR # 4, we definitely wanted some version of this song represented. The Orphans' original version was a no-go--Noah said even he didn't have a copy of that anymore--but The Rulers' version was A-OK by us, as long as we could get a radio edit, and as long as we could restore the original expanded title. Noah drafted a pal to carry out the edit, and granted our plea to exhume the more descriptive "I Want My Ramones Records Back" as its title. Mission accomplished, easy as 1-2-3-4!
The presumed (and desired) immediacy of TIRnRR does not in any way dilute our commitment to a bigger picture, a longer view of who we are, where we're going, and how we got this far. We forget stuff, sure, but we remember a lot. Really, a lot. We remember songs, and parts of songs, and performers, and listeners, and circumstances, and comments, and impressions, and the sensation of sheer, exuberant connection. And if we love something, we hold tight to its memory, and we retain its spark forever. The spark of "I Want My Ramones Records Back" has never been far from our consciousness, even over that span of years when we couldn't hear it. We remembered. Unlike that song says, though, you can't keep the Blondie and The Knack, nor The Sex Pistols and The Clash, and we do give a damn about The Rolling Stones. We want 'em all. But we'd be dying without our Ramones.
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