The Noisepaper: Throwback Track of the Week: The Ramones

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Throwback Track of the Week: The Ramones - Chain Saw (1976)

After our recent journey through the Ramones best songs of the 80s (and beyond), it seemed fitting to step back to the classic and flawless sound that made them legends in the first place. Their debut album crashed the gates with a dirt-simple barrage of three-chord grind and reluctant but undeniable hooks. Chain Saw encapsulates this sound in what is simultaneously one of its catchiest and most aggressive moments.

This song was ostensibly written about the film Texas Chain Saw Massacre (horror-nerd bonus points for making "chain saw" two words, as the movie's title does). The opening buzzsaw sound-effect fits right in with the abrasive, in-your-face, and ultra-distorted guitar drive that it leads into. Offsetting it is an early instance of the bands "woah-oh" gang vocals, a bubblegum throwback which contributes to their signature sound just as much as the aggression, and would much later become a genre staple.

From there we get Joey's version of the massacre, which endearingly seems to fit a template of Ramones songwriting. There's a guy sitting around with nothing to do. He's thinking of you. They took his baby away. She'll never get out of there. He doesn't care. Sums things up pretty well, and it's really only missing some glue-sniffing to wrap up their early songwriting material. My personal favorite part is the way Joey mispronounces "massacre" to rhyme with "me". As is the case with so many of their best moments, this is a cranked-up 1960s girl-group song with a macabre twist, and at 180 beats-per-minute (the fastest song on a notoriously fast album) you're too busy rocking out to care either.