Song of the Day 7/16: General Johnson and Joey Ramone, “Rockaway Beach”

Carolina beach music was invented for this time of year but, despite the title, “Rockaway Beach” is not beach music. At least, it wasn’t before General Johnson enlisted Joey Ramone to join him in a beach-music reworking of the punk classic for a mid-’90s compilation album.

General Johnson is known to most music fans as the lead singer of the Chairmen of the Board, a group that’s on the Mount Rushmore of beach music, and he’s in fine voice here. Joey Ramone is, to put it mildly, not of that world, but any Ramones fan knows he loves that old ’60s music, so I’m not surprised he’d agree to do this. I wish the video quality was better, because this is as animated as you’ll ever see Joey Ramone, and I don’t mean the parts where he’s a cartoon. He actually looks like he’s enjoying this.

As a reminder, here’s how Joey did it with the rest of the Ramones. Though Rockaway Beach is close to where Joey grew up, the song was written by Dee Dee, the only member of the band who actually liked the beach. It was the highest-charting single of the Ramones’ career, peaking at No. 62 on the Hot 100.