Leave Home (1977)

I suspect the reason Leave Home is my favorite Ramones album is because it's the first one I owned and lived with extensively. Late in 1977, as Ramones product was already starting to pile up, a friend and I, economizing, agreed to take turns for awhile. No surprise, Rocket to Russia is the best of the lot according to him to this day. But Leave Home takes the rudiments of the debut and advances it with just enough confidence and flourish to establish the Ramones sound once and for all: simplistic three-chord rock 'n' roll, verse-chorus-verse pop song structures (with melodies), and calculatedly demented lyrical concerns ("Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment," etc.). The pleasure of it is palpable and infectious; the Ramones have always seemed to me so engaging, non-threatening, and spirited as to almost run against the grain of punk-rock. I still think their music is closer to bubblegum and the Ohio Express—OK, make that the Trashmen—than most of the angry mob across the Atlantic. Foundational tracks include "Carbona Not Glue," left out of the original release because of concerns about legal action from the manufacturers of Carbona, a stain-removal product offering a superior high (the song was quietly included in later versions and no lawsuit ever materialized). "Pinhead" is another significant milestone for the band, inspired by director Tod Browning's classic 1932 horror picture, Freaks. The "gabba gabba hey" chorus (modeled on the "gobble gobble, one of us, one of us" scenes from the movie) practically became the band's official motto and ambassadorial calling card. "Suzy Is a Headbanger" is nearly as fine a statement of purpose as Rocket's "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker." Song countoffs everywhere, of course. The cover song was the Rivieras' "California Sun," which is approximately perfect, and nicely furthered the persistent punk-rock/New Wave meme of the carefully selected signifying cover. There's a story that the track sequencing here is based on the order the songs were written in so perhaps it follows that "Commando" and especially "You're Gonna Kill That Girl," #s 12 and 13 of the original 14, are the best put-together here, with the kind of hooks and production touches on the chorus that start to unfold only when you get the right hang of how it's sung. But the whole thing is damn fine. Like a whole lot of punk-rock it plays best in the company of itself rather than within shuffle, where Ramones tracks tend to knock heads with almost everything else, so be sure to take the time to enjoy it as an album proper. That's my one piece of advice about the Ramones.