Ten Favorite Radio Songs: Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio (#7)

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I’ll bet you’re wondering why Zevon was so low on the countdown. Lots of other favorites ahead of him! For today’s song on my list of favorites with “radio” in the title I’ll go with another one of those great classic bands....one I was actually fortunate enough to see live. #7: Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio - Ramones What happens when a punk meets the 50s? This song. That’s really not a far stretch in describing the entire career of the Ramones: take a rockabilly melody, speed it up two-three times faster, and add modern themes (“I Wanna Be Sedated”) for lyrics, and boom! As this song points out, the reason that the Ramones and other punk acts became so iconic is because they got away from the formulaic music that was starting to take over (with disco and pop, then). They saw what was coming: “We need change and we need it fast before rock’s just part of the past, ‘cause lately it all sounds the same to me.” And it came. And they told us it would. Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio Written by Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone, and Johnny Ramone Recorded by the Ramones From End of the Century, 1980 It’s the end, the end of the 70s: