Dee Dee Ramone

I can't resist additional blog posts about my favorite Ramone. Most people inclined to pick a "favorite Ramone" would probably have gone with Joey. He was a liberal activist, all around good guy, and his crippling social anxiety probably endeared him to a lot of people. Plus he did that pretty good version of What a Wonderful World before he died.

I like Dee Dee because I see him as tragic and I feel bad for him.He led a train wreck of a life that shielded audiences from his genius. Although every Ramones song was credited to all of the band's members, it was probably Joey who received most of the attention and Dee Dee perhaps the least. In fact, for the first half of the band's career it was Tommy Ramone (drums) who spoke to the media since he was the "best speaker." Not that this was incorrect. Joey was too shy, and listen to Dee Dee speak. Despite all this, Dee Dee wrote or co-wrote most of the Ramones' lyrics. Not that he cared about the attention, of course. He was probably too high heroin or too busy working as a male prostitute to care. When he finally quit the band he continued to write songs for it, the same way that Tommy continued to produce even though Marky joined to drum. I have to respect the hell out of that, even if it was just for a paycheck. Of all of the Ramones members, original or not, Dee Dee was probably the one who had truly lived the rock and roll lifestyle, so it's befitting that he died at 50 of a heroin overdose.

Dee Dee's solo album Latest and Greatest from 2000 (1 year before he died) included him singing some of his Ramones' songs. Like this one: