THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE: Swallow My Pride

This draws from a couple of previous posts to form a stand-alone piece. This is not currently included in the blueprint for my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!

THE RAMONES: Swallow My Pride

Written by Ramones [Joey Ramone]

Produced by Tony Bongiovi and T. Erdelyi

Single from the album Leave Home, Sire Recoirds, 1977

Power pop? The Ramones were more than any one genre, but yeah, they were assuredly a power pop group--a FANTASTIC power pop group--on so many of their tracks. "Swallow My Pride" (from 1977's Leave Home) is a prime example of power pop Ramones. It was also a single, a surefire monster power pop single.

It did not chart.

We should have seen this as a sign: If "Swallow My Pride" couldn't become a smash hit single, any top-of-the-pops aspirations the Ramones harbored were doomed from the start. Looking just at the Ramones' American singles, we can say maybe U.S. radio wasn't quite ready for "Blitzkrieg Bop" in '76, that "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" was pretty but not smooth enough for American airwaves, and maybe "I Remember You" didn't have the prerequisite oomph to be radio-ready.

But "Swallow My Pride" was perfect. Perfect. It's pure pop, drawing inspiration from the best '60s influences, and it doesn't even have any specific punk or glue-sniffing aspect to put an asterisk on its commercial sheen. It's a revved-up counterpart to the Bay City Rollers' "Rock And Roll Love Letter" or KISS' "Shout It Out Loud."

Perhaps "Swallow My Pride" was too good for Top 40 in 1977, and I guess progressive FM might have thought it too pop (or whatever other excuse they could concoct to dismiss something so obviously beneath the snooty-tooty noses attached to their smug carcasses). The Ramones' next three singles--"Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," "Rockaway Beach," and "Do You Wanna Dance"--maintained a similarly irresistible spark, and even managed to breach the Billboard Hot 100. No subsequent Ramones single even came close.

The Ramones deserved a string of hit records. "Swallow My Pride" should have been one of 'em.

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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/

If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

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