My Top 1000 Songs #94: I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone
But it's rare to find that ode to rock music that transcends the subject itself. Hence the glory of Sleater-Kinney's "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone," from 1996's Call The Doctor. It's first and foremost a visceral gut-punch, the call-and-response siren wails of Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein in that yeah-wow chorus saying more about pure, unadulterated musical joy than a dozen "I dig rock music!" proclamations. But it's all the more thrilling for so effectively driving home the obvious (but often ignored) reality that grrls, too, can nurse bedroom rock star dreams. Bonus points for foregoing the more obvious rock star poster-boys in favor of Joey (and, perhaps more problematically in hindsight but perfectly at the time, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore).
Yeah? Wow.
Notably, Doctor was the last S-K album before powerhouse drummer Janet Weiss joined the band; and while the studio version is fine, one has to wonder how it could've been elevated even more with Weiss. So here's a live version with her at the kit (with Corin brilliantly subbing in Moore's ex Kim Gordon in the second chorus):
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