From Bleecker and the Bowery to Lower Broadway
From 53rd and 3rd down to Rockaway
From the streets through the tunnels and the subway screech
From the dirty downtown all the way to the beach
Whether punk, rock, or power pop
Whether blitzkrieg bop or cretin hop
For just three minutes, let the music stop
‘Cause Joey’s gone
From big empty apartments in a Queens high rise
To endless backstages in countless two-bit dives
From fleabag high school dorm rooms with paper-thin walls
To greasy grimy dumpy decrepit rehearsal halls
Whether rockers with the sound down to a science
Whether punks with fists raised in anarchic defiance
For just three minutes, let all be silence
‘Cause Joey’s gone
No lamentations, no elegies
No ballads, no dirges, no eulogies
No 12-minute paeans to the day the music died
That’s the way he would have wanted it, unqualified
Just three chords with no grandiosity
Just 4/4 time at escape velocity
Just rock’n’roll in all its raw ferocity
Joey’s gone
Hey hey hey, ho ho ho
Joey’s gone—say it ain’t so
Hey hey hey, ho ho ho
Joey’s gone, but it was too soon to go.
©2024 The Hesh Inc.
Joey Ramone, né Jeffrey Hyman, arguably the seminal frontman of punk rock and one of the greatest in rock music as a whole, died on April 15, 2001, which corresponded with the last day of Passover (Achron Shel Pesach, outside of Israel) that year. He wasn't quite 50 years old.
I wrote these lyrics not that long after his passing; I have yet to write the music, although it's fairly certain that whatever I write will involve buzzsaw guitars, four-on-the-floor drums, and no more than four chords.
What else is there to say. We are still feeling his loss and missing his presence, almost two decades later. May his memory be for a blessing.