Ramones - Leave Home

Second verse, not quite like the first.... Released a mere nine months after the Ramones' ground-breaking debut, 1977's Leave Home was in many respects a continuation of the sound and attitude of the first album, with its unrelenting barrage of chunky guitar down strokes and Mad Magazine-influenced lyrical absurdity. But even a cursory listen reveals the Ramones had made plenty of progress in less than a year. The performances on Leave Home are tighter and better focused than they were on Ramones, and Tommy Ramone's minimalist drumming gained a bit of swing that was absent on the debut. The Ramones sound more comfortable with their attack, never quite as simple as it seems, while also bearing down with a greater speed and ferocity that finds them hitting their stride in the studio. Just as importantly, the production is noticeably more polished this time out, which helps more than one might expect. Without the strict left/right separation of Ramones, Leave Home is friendlier to the ear, and the increased clarity does wonders for the passionate bleat of Joey's vocals, Johnny's unrelenting Mosrite abuse, and the melodic details that lurk beneath the surface of the Ramones' wall of noise. And if the first album was full of immediate classics, Leave Home has more than its share of great tunes, including the anthemic "Pinhead" and "Commando," the high-velocity teen romance of "Oh Oh I Love Her So" (certainly the greatest love story ever set at a Burger King), and the catchy invitations to bad behaviour in "Glad to See You Go." Leave Home wasn't as startling as the Ramones' first album, and it's not quite as strong and consistent as their masterpiece Rocket to Russia, but it was a positive step forward for the Pride of Forest Hills, and it's one of their best and most satisfying albums.

Review by Andrew Sacher for Brooklyn Vegan

While Leave Home is often overshadowed by the debut because the debut came first and is therefore more ground-breaking, Leave Home is more than just a refinement of the sound the debut created. It’s stacked top to bottom with some of their catchiest, funniest, darkest, sweetest, and most iconic songs. Songs of war (“Commando”) and murder (“Glad To See You Go”) sound as sugary sweet as the love songs (“Oh Oh I Love Her So”). The ballads (“I Remember You,” “What’s Your Game”) sound as punk as the harder/heavier songs (“Pinhead,” “Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy”). “I Remember You” is one of — if not the — best ballads of the Ramones’ career. It’s sharper and more affecting than “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” from the debut and more driving than ballads on subsequent albums like “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” and “Don’t Come Close” that brought in jangly acoustic guitars. “Pinhead” isn’t as widely loved as “Blitzkrieg Bop,” but it’s just as crucial to the Ramones’ status as icons and arguably a better song. “Blitzkrieg Bop” gave us “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!” but “Pinhead” gave us “Gabba Gabba Hey.” “Pinhead” also gave us the shouted “D-U-M-B / Everyone’s accusing me!” and it’s hard to imagine generation after generation of punk bands with gang vocals if not for that line. “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” (which was technically released as a single after Leave Home came out, but which replaced “Carbona Not Glue” on most US versions of Leave Home after the first pressing, and was also included on Rocket to Russia) is among the band’s finest moments as pop songwriters. Other memorable moments include the way Joey Ramone sings “Swallow My Pride” on the song of the same name, the way he sings “ey!” on “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl,” the way the band shouts “FIRST RULE… IS!” (and so on) on “Commando” — so many things that only the Ramones can do, or at least that the Ramones did first, and all on this same album.

Most Ramones albums — especially the early ones — also had cover songs, and Leave Home has one of their strongest covers, “California Sun.” Ramones do The Rivieras’ 1964 surf rock version of the Henry Glover-penned 1960 song, and Ramones weren’t even the first band to turn it into a punk song (The Dictators did that in 1975), but all these years later, no version of “California Sun” is more iconic than the Ramones. They really knew how to take a song and turn it into their own, and as much as they went on to do great takes on “Do You Wanna Dance?,” “Needles and Pins,” “Time Has Come Today,” and other songs, “California Sun” just might be their most essential cover.

The most common criticism that Leave Home faces is that it was just more of the same after the debut, and yes the Ramones had a signature style that they stuck to, but Leave Home really has its own vibe within the context of the Ramones’ discography. More than any other Ramones album, Leave Home mirrors the band’s legendary high-speed live show. Nearly all the songs — even the “slow” ones — zip by at a pace that still feels exhilarating today, even with the invention of much heavier, faster music in the time since 1977. There isn’t a song worth skipping, and the highs on this album are among the highest highs of the band’s career. Both Leave Home‘s popular songs and its deeper cuts are among the best songs the band ever wrote, and there’s nothing on this album that gets old. Every time you put it on, it feels like the first time.

Ripped from the second edition to MP3

A1 Glad To See You Go 2:10

A2 Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment 1:38

A3 I Remember You 2:15

A4 Oh Oh I Love Her So 1:56

A5 Sheena Is A Punk Rocker 2:45

A6 Suzy Is A Headbanger 2:08

A7 Pinhead 2:42

B1 Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy 2:10

B2 Swallow My Pride 2:03

B3 What's Your Game 2:33

B4 California Sun 1:58

B5 Commando 1:50

B6 You're Gonna Kill That Girl 2:36

B7 You Should Never Have Opened That Door 1:54