Rockaway Beach

There's a looseness to this one that distinguishes it from the tightest Ramones tracks — the tempo still hammers, but something about the guitar tone here is slightly warmer, almost beachy in a bleached-out, sun-damaged way. It doesn't sound like a real beach so much as the idea of a beach filtered through someone who grew up far from one and imagined it would solve everything. The chord progression has a circular, almost sing-song quality underneath the crunch, and Joey's vocal pushes up with genuine enthusiasm, a kind of goofy joy that the band didn't always let themselves express openly. The song is about escape as a concept — the fantasy of somewhere else, the teenage conviction that a different location would mean a different life. That's a feeling with no expiration date. The bridge, brief as it is, opens up just enough space to breathe before collapsing back into the rush. It's one of the more melodically generous Ramones songs, the hooks hitting you immediately and then replaying in your head for hours without your permission. There's something almost nostalgic about it even when heard for the first time, evoking a summer that may not have happened quite the way you remember it. You'd reach for it on the first genuinely warm day of the year, windows down, with nowhere you urgently need to be.