This year for the 2023 A-Z Blog Challenge, I’m going to begin by listing a song or musical subject, and then see how fast and how far I can completely blow up my own “stream of consciousness,” and head “off the reservation,” by linking every real, and “Zulu Delta-imagined” fact, piece of music trivia, or not so apparent connection to what is racing around my head to that song in an “unstructured, graffiti-like” format. Complete and utter nonsense! Turn it up and turn it on, but as Van “The Man” Morrison said…….”It’s already turned on!”

The Ramones released the song “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” in 1986.

Bedtime for Bonzo was a 1951 movie starting Ronald Reagan.

“Bonzo Goes to Bitburg was a song about then U.S. President Ronald Reagan going to Germany and laying a wreath on the graves of Nazi Soldiers in Bitburg, West Germany. (Before the Unification).

This was also the gravesite for the Waffen-SS; the SS being the most rabid and Aryan of the Nazis. 

Commercially, the single had mixed reviews and sales. Musically, a few “lukewarm” articles from critics, were also blasted with “claims” of the song being one of the greatest Ramones songs of all time; best music, best lyrics, best social commentary, best “Shut The * Up” to everyone who would not stand against the Nazis!

I agree with the later statements.

It’s not like Reagan and his “team” didn’t see the controversy coming. Before he even went, his visit was opposed by Jewish groups, Veterans groups, and, get this….. both Houses of the U.S. Congress.

When was the last time that happened?

Not convinced that he already had a firestorm on his hands, he made this additional comment before he left for the trip about the soldiers at Bitburg; “they were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.”

The “push back” also came from and unlikely source. Joey Ramone. A Jewish-American Punk Rocker from New York City, whose simplistic songs and hardcore melodies up until this point would never have been confused for a speech before the United Nations.

Joey Said; “We had watched Reagan going to visit the SS cemetery on TV and were disgusted. We’re all good Americans, but Reagan’s thing was like forgive and forget. How can you forget six million people being gassed and roasted?”

Check out the Lyrics including a few swipes at the “Queen-Want-To-Be” Nancy Reagan.

You’ve got to pick up the pieces
Come on, sort your trash better
Pull yourself back together
Maybe you’ve got too much cash

Better, call, call the law
When you gonna turn yourself in, yeah
You’re a politician
Don’t become one of Hitler’s children

Bonzo goes to Bitburg
Then goes out for a cup of tea
As I watched it on TV
Somehow it really bothered me
Drank in all the bars in town
To understand your foreign policy
Pick up the pieces

My brain is hanging upside down
(Ah, na-na-na)
I need something to slow me down
(Ah, na-na-na) ooh, yeah
My brain is hanging upside down
(Ah, na-na-na)
And I need something to slow me down

Shoulda wished her happiness
Wish her the very best
50, 000 dollar dress
Shaking hands with your highness

See through you like cellophane
You watch the world complain
But you do it anyway
Who am I, am I to say?

Bonzo goes to Bitburg
Then goes out for a cup of tea
As I watched it on TV
Somehow it really bothered me
Drank in all the bars in town
To understand your foreign policy
Pick up the pieces

My brain is hanging upside down
(Ah, na-na-na)
I need something to slow me down
(Ah, na-na-na) ooh, yeah
My brain is hanging upside down
(Ah, na-na-na)
And I need something to slow me down

There’s one thing that makes me sick
It’s when someone tries to hide behind their politics
I wish that time could go by fast
Somehow they manage to make it last

ooh, yeah
My brain is hanging upside down
(Ah, na-na-na)
I need something to slow me down
(Ah, na-na-na) ooh, yeah
My brain is hanging upside down
(Ah, na-na-na)
And I need something to slow me down

ooh, yeah
My brain is hanging upside down
(Ah, na-na-na)
And I need something to slow me down
(Ah, na-na-na)
My brain is hanging upside down

For me, here is one more crazy comparison. Ronald Reagan was Donald Trump before Trump turned out like Reagan. 

What??????

The Unite the Right Rally on August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia was a white supremacist rally that included the Alt-Right, Neo-Confederates, Neo-Fascists, White Nationalist, Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen, and far-right militias.

Unite the Right Rally

Trump under public pressure to condemn the violence that occurred there said “there were very fine people on both sides.” 

Side-stepping the idea that this is a blog about music, the crazy part to me is, as you may have guessed, I think both of these men are huge morons, but the craziest of the crazy part is “somewhere” in the background, both men must have had some seriously evil people slipping hateful ideas in the heads of these two men!

So….let’s move on…..

I saw the Ramones play the “Living Room” in Providence, Rhode Island. My first and only time participating in “slam dancing” at the “mosh pit” It was awesome and epic, and something I have never done since or don’t ever want to do again in my next 10 lives!

In 1995, The Ramones added a version of Spider-Man for the cartoon soundtrack.

Their song “I Want to Be Your Boyfriend” was in “Spider-Man; Far From Home.”

Let’s leave with a movie clip from Spider-Man “1.” A quick, obscure comic bit of a man playing guitar in the subway.

Wicked!