CD Reviews

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Artist: Joey Ramone
Title: Don't Worry About Me
Released By Sanctuary Records – 2002

Reviewed By Rick Brown

I had originally wanted to review this CD for the previous issue of Naked Sunfish...until I listened to "Don't Worry About Me" the first time. Halfway through the opening track, "What a Wonderful world" (the tune made famous by Louis Armstrong) I got so choked up I didn't think I would be able to listen to the entire thing. I didn't know Joey...although it sure seems that way to me at times...but he was six months older than me. He died of cancer just weeks before his 50th birthday...a celebration I observed last fall. And he and I shared a love for American pop music that...at times...bordered on schlock. Joey had no problem recording...with the Ramones...tunes like Sonny Bono's "Needles and Pins", the Chambers Brother's "Time Has Come Today", or even Ohio's own Music Explosion's "Little Bit 'O Soul" Hell...the Ramones even covered the theme to the Spiderman cartoon show.

But here's the real thing. While I listened to "Don't Worry About Me", which Joey recorded as he fought the disease that eventually killed him, all those feelings I experienced watching my good buddy Rob fight pancreatic cancer for three years came rushing back into my consciousness. And it hurt. Anyone who has been close to a friend or family member knows what I'm talking about here. The days filled with hope. The nights filled with despair. The "stopping and smelling the roses" savoring of what seems to be every living moment. And finally...the realization that someone is eventually...most certainly...going to be taken away from you. In retrospect I find myself reminiscing about something as simple as a game of pool...a jam session in the basement. The ordinary becomes very...very special.

Although Rob wasn't the Ramones fan I was (few people I know are...or ever have been) he and I were the same age. We both played guitar. We both worked basically the same job for at least ten years together. Unlike Joey...Rob fell short of his 36th birthday. I did the eulogy at his funeral...a funeral where Beatles music filled the air before the service began. He was buried wearing his N.Y. Yankee cap and warm up jacket. Somehow I think Joey would have been pleased. Speaking was one of the hardest things I've ever done. And if I learned anything it's that there are more difficult experiences ahead of me, but I'm more ready now.

Most of the material on "Don't Worry About Me" Joey wrote himself. He penned many of the Ramone's songs also but this is hardly a Ramones' recording. For one thing at least 4 songs are almost 4 minutes in length...literally twice as long as a typical Ramones' tune. Then there's Joey singing in falsetto. And the CD is recorded to give him more space to use his voice...which was not just distictive...but as evidenced here...quite good. Subject wise the songs cover a lot of ground. "Mr. Punchy" is a tribute to the Who reflecting "Happy Jack" in a not so subtle way...ending with the delightful line, "Everybody's screwed up in their own special way!" Amen.

Joey rails against materialism with "Stop Thinking About It" in which he observes in a very Zen attitude, "You don't know what you want but you want it." In "Maria Bartiromo" he unabashedly reveals his crush on the cable financial advisor. And what a hoot it is to hear him sing, "What's happening with Yahoo? What's happening with AOL? I want to know." obviously reflecting the boredom of stays in the hospital with nothing better to do than watch whatever is on television. Yet he wears his heart on his sleeve by assuming Ms. Bartiromo's eyes "make everything OK". The lyric is both adolescent and touching.

Probably the most dramatic of the tunes...in a real life sense...has to be "I Got Knocked Down (But I'll Get up". With lines that certainly reveal the conflict of despair and hope such as "Sitting in a hospital bed...I want life...I want my life. It really sucks." and "I got knocked down...but I'll get up." Joey is looking us in the face and telling us the awful truth yet remaining firm in his resolve. This makes me remember an obscure tune from the early 70's I used to play. I don;t even remember who originally did it. The title is "Live Til You Die"...and that's what Joey Ramone says here. That's what Joey Ramone did. This CD is a tribute to that courage.

Shortly before my friend Rob got sick for the final time he said to me, "You know Rick. I used to think you were a troublemaker. Now I wish I had lived my life more like you." I don't think anyone has ever paid me a higher compliment. Joey Ramone was a lovable, gangly, sometimes goofy rabble rouser who lived til he died. He knew who he was and he was true to himself. He was more than likely a better troublemaker than I am. Buy Joey's CD. Listen to it...you'll learn something. Take it from a troublemaker.