After spending an entire month looking back at the 80’s, I realized one thing. I need more. Luckily, a couple of fellow music fans on Twitter came up with the brilliant idea to highlight #30DaysOf80sMovieSongs during the month of April. I couldn’t resist at the opportunity to keep going, to keep listening, and to keep celebrating the decade that has meant more to me than any other from a musical standpoint. Each day I’m playing a different soundtrack favorite on the Mental Jukebox.
Movie: Pet Sematary
Stephen King is a huge Ramones fan. So if King wants a Ramones song to be featured in his next film, then Kings gets a Ramones song. As the story goes, he handed the band a copy of the novel in his home in Maine. Bassist Dee Dee Ramone took it with him to the basement and returned with the lyrics for the song an hour later. I remember hearing it on Long Island’s WDRE. It had been a while since I last heard a new Ramones song. In fact, my knowledge of the band is so closely tied to the 70’s, that I’m not even sure I’m familiar with anything that the band produced in the 80’s with the exception of this single.
The thing about the Ramones is that I actually don’t like them that much. They make for fun party music. But I just get bored too fast with that two-minute, three-chord formula. The songs all sound too similar to me. At least the 5-6 well known ones. And they all seem to run at the same speed. But “Pet Sematary” was something else. It still sounded like a Ramones song, but it had a bit more dimension to it. The chorus had more legs. Not to mention the instrumentation. (I could’ve sworn I heard some synth in there). “Pet Sematary” ironically gave the band some new life as well as newfound relevance among modern rock fans like me.
“I don't want to be buried in a pet sematary. I don't want to live my life again.”