I Wanna Be Sedated

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"I Wanna Be Sedated"
Single by Ramones
from the album 'Road to Ruin'
Released	1978
Recorded	1978
Genre	Punk
Length	2:29
Label	Sire
Writer(s)	Joey Ramone
Producer(s)	Tommy Erdelyi, Ed Stasium
Ramones singles chronology
"Rockaway Beach" (1977)	"I Wanna Be Sedated" (1978)	"I'm Against It" (1978)

"I Wanna Be Sedated" is one of the best known^[1] singles by the punk rock group the Ramones. It was released in 1978 and appeared on their fourth album, Road to Ruin.

Contents 1 Backstory 2 Trivia 3 Cover versions 4 In popular culture 5 Sample 6 References

[edit] Backstory

"I Wanna Be Sedated" was written by Joey Ramone when he had to go to the hospital to be treated for burns after accidentally spilling boiling water on himself. Joey was in the habit of inhaling steam from a kettle before performing, to clear his sinuses.

In an interview about the song, Joey explains the chorus, "It's a road song. I wrote it in 1977, through the 78. Well, Danny Fields was our first manager and he would work us to death. We would be on the road 360 days a year, and we went over to England, and we were there at Christmas time, and in Christmas time London shuts down. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go. Here we were in London for the first time in our lives, and me and Dee Dee Ramone were sharing a room in the hotel, and we were watching The Guns of Navarone. So there was nothing to do, I mean, here we are in London finally, and this is what we are doing, watching American movies in the hotel room".

[edit] Trivia

• Rolling Stone Magazine recognised it as "The greatest God-does-the-road-ever-suck song". It is also number 144 on the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
• The video features a young Courtney Love^[2]

[edit] Cover versions

• The Offspring covered the song for the Ramones tribute album We're a Happy Family.
• The band Sugarcult covers this song at every performance.^{[citation needed]}
• Shonen Knife has recorded a version of the song.
• moe. covered the song on their live album Warts and All.

[edit] In popular culture

• In 1999, National Public Radio included the song in the "NPR 100," in which NPR's music editors sought to compile the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century.
• The song appears on the soundtrack to the 1980 movie Times Square.
• The song is referenced in the 1996 movie Carpool.
• Jordan Catalano and his band cover the song in an episode of My So Called Life.
• In an episode entitled "Crush", the character Spike sings a portion of the song in the fifth season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• The song appears on the soundtrack to the 1999 film Detroit Rock City.
• The Offspring perform the song in the 1999 comedy/horror movie Idle Hands.
• The song is on the soundtrack to the 2004 PlayStation 2 and Xbox racing video game Burnout 3: Takedown.
• A playable cover version of the song is featured in the 2005 PlayStation 2 video game Guitar Hero.
• The song is referenced in the third season of the HBO television series Entourage, in which there is a fictional script about the Ramones entitled I Wanna Be Sedated.

[edit] Sample

[edit] References