Album: Leave Home
Year: 1977
. . .
Gabba gabba hey!
Gabba gabba hey!
One of the many things the early Ramones were great at was opening their songs with shouted chants — I mean the first thing we hear out of Joey’s mouth was “Hey! Ho! Let’s go!” — and perhaps their greatest was the one they famously stole from Tod Browning’s 1932 film, Freaks, during which the titular freaks chant “we accept you, one of us, gooble gobble” over and over.
It’s as joyful as it is disturbing, which the Ramones capture perfectly in “Pinhead,” where they — either with a sensitivity to copyright that they didn’t show on “Carbona Not Glue,” or the desire to make it more musical — open the song with a reverse-echoed twisting of that chant:
Gabba gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us
Gabba gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us
The beautiful thing about this is that not only is it an homage to freaks, it’s also an acknowledgement that in the late 1970s, Ramones fans were considered the freaks and the weirdos, and so it’s also a love letter to those freaks and weirdos. Oh and pinheads. Can’t forget the pinheads.
I don’t want to be a pinhead no more
I just met a nurse that I could go for
I don’t want to be a pinhead no more
I just met a nurse that I could go for
I don’t want to be a pinhead no more
I just met a nurse that I could go for
I don’t want to be a pinhead no more
I just met a nurse that I could go for
One of the cool things about “Pinhead” was just how much Johnny’s guitar and Joey’s vocals are in sync. In his usual style, Joey clips off each word hard, and rather than sustaining his guitar across the lyrics, Johnny clips his chords along with Joey’s vocals. The result is kind of unsettling, especially given how hopeless the pinhead’s plight actually is.
D!-U!-M!-B!
Everyone’s accusing me!
D!-U!-M!-B!
Everyone’s accusing me!
With Joey shouting that over just Tommy’s drumbeat, it’s once again a meta commentary on the people who couldn’t grok just how fresh and clever the Ramones really were. Which was another one of their great subjects: why aren’t we huge fucking stars? And the answer was that people thought they were glue-sniffing pinheads, only half of which was true.
Why is this Ramones song different from all other Ramones songs?
At the end, Johnny switches up his guitar one more time, and his guitar harmonizes with Joey’s chant for the ages:
Gabba gabba hey!
Gabba gabba hey!
Gabba gabba hey!
Gabba gabba hey!
And then, surrounding the chant, the freaks finally come out, and with a little help from Tommy playing around with pitch as all start in with random “pleased to meet you,” “gabba gabbas” and “one of us” until the whole thing fades out.
This all made “Pinhead” a live favorite, as eventually one of the roadies dressed as a pinhead would bring a GABBA GABBA HEY! sign onstage for Joey to thrust while the audience would deliriously chant it with the band.
“Pinhead”
“Pinhead” live in London, 1977
“Pinhead” from Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, 1979
“Pinhead” live in Finland, 1988
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