"Chinese Rocks" or "Chinese Rock" is a song written in 1975 by New York punk rock musician

Dee Dee Ramone Douglas Glenn Colvin (September 18, 1951 – June 5, 2002), better known by his stage name Dee Dee Ramone, was an American musician. He was the bassist and a founding member of the punk rock band Ramones. Throughout the band's existence, he wa ...

with contributions from

Richard Hell Richard Lester Meyers (born October 2, 1949), better known by his stage name Richard Hell, is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer. Hell was in several important early punk rock bands, including Neon Boys, Television and ...

. Inspired by

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. ...

's " Heroin", the song openly details the day-to-day ravages of opiate addiction, based on Dee Dee's real-life experiences. Authorship of the track is heavily disputed. Hell made several claims that it is his, though it is generally accepted as mostly Dee Dee's work. The song was first recorded by Hell's band

the Heartbreakers The Heartbreakers, sometimes referred to as Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers, were an American punk rock band formed in New York City in 1975. The band spearheaded the first wave of punk rock. History Johnny Thunders (vocals/guitar) and Jerry ...

, and later by Dee Dee's band the

Ramones The Ramones were an American punk rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first true punk rock group. Despite achieving a limited commercial appeal in the United ...

. The Ramones' recorded version and the version they initially performed at live shows changed the words "is Dee Dee home?" to "is Arty home?", although the earlier version was sometimes used after Dee Dee left the Ramones' lineup. In live performances, the Heartbreakers, but not the Ramones, also sometimes substituted sexual references for some of the mentions of "Chinese rocks".

Origin

Hell and Dee Dee were in agreement that the song was mainly written by Dee Dee. "The reason I wrote that song was out of spite for

, because he told me he was going to write a song better than

's " Heroin", so I went home and wrote 'Chinese Rocks'," Dee Dee is quoted in ''Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk''. "I wrote it by myself, in

Debbie Harry Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble; July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1981. Born in ...

's apartment on First Avenue and First Street."McNeil and McCain, p. 214. According to Dee Dee, the song was "about Jerry Nolan of

calling me up to come over and go cop" heroin, a form of which was known in those days as 'Chinese Rocks'. "The line 'My girlfriend's crying in the shower stall' was about Connie, and the shower was at Arturo Vega's loft", where Dee Dee, his girlfriend Connie and

Joey Ramone Jeffrey Ross Hyman (May 19, 1951 – April 15, 2001), known professionally as Joey Ramone, was an American musician, best known as the lead singer and a founding member of the punk rock band Ramones. His image, voice, and his tenure with the R ...

all lived at one point. Dee Dee wanted to record the song with the Ramones, but

Johnny Ramone John William Cummings (October 8, 1948 – September 15, 2004), better known by his stage name Johnny Ramone, was an American musician who was the guitarist and a founding member of the Ramones, a band that helped pioneer the punk movement. ...

vetoed it, considering it too obviously drug-related. Dee Dee then took it to Richard Hell, also with the Heartbreakers at the time. "Dee Dee called me one day and said, 'I wrote a song that the Ramones won't do,'" Hell recalled. "He said, 'It's not finished. How about I come over and show it to you and we can finish it if you like it?'" According to Hell, "What happened is really clear, and the songwriting credits can all be checked at BMI. The song is by me and Dee Dee, but Dee Dee did 75 percent of it. I mean, all I did was write two verses out of three. Dee Dee wrote the music, the concept was his. He's basically responsible for it. But he brought me the song; he didn't even know Johnny and Jerry, but we were friends and he thought the band was great. And when the Ramones didn't want to do the song he said, 'Look, I've written one verse of this song with the chorus and it's about heroin, how about you write the rest of it and it's yours?'" And that's what he did." Dee Dee similarly recalled, "Richard Hell put that line in, so I gave him some credit."

The Heartbreakers

There are differing recollections as to how the song became part of the Heartbreakers' repertoire. Richard Hell said, "I brought it to the next rehearsal, exactly as it was done by the Heartbreakers for all those years. I would sing it because it was a song I brought in." Dee Dee, on the other hand, wrote in his memoir, "When Jerry was over at my place one day, we did some dope and then I played him my song, and he took it with him to a Heartbreakers' rehearsal."Ramone, p. 89. In either case, the song became one of the band's most popular songs. As Hell said, "After I left the Heartbreakers, they kept playing 'Chinese Rocks' and then ended up recording it" for the band's 1977 debut album, '' L.A.M.F.''. "And they put all of their names on it, though nothing had changed about the song—they just added their names to it.

Johnny Thunders John Anthony Genzale (July 15, 1952 – April 23, 1991), known professionally as Johnny Thunders, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of the New York Dolls. He later played wit ...

... had nothing to do with 'Chinese Rocks' at all." All vinyl pressings of ''L.A.M.F.'' credit the song writers as Thunders, Heartbreakers' drummer Jerry Nolan as well as Ramone and Hell. It was only after the deaths of Thunders and Nolan that the credit was changed. However, both the 1994 and 2002 CD reissues of ''L.A.M.F.'' now name the three ''Ramones'' as the writers

Joey Joey may refer to: People *Joey (name) Animals * Joey (marsupial), an infant marsupial * Joey, a Blue-fronted Amazon parrot who was one of the Blue Peter pets Film and television * ''Joey'' (1977 film), an American film directed by Horace ...

and Dee Dee—but not Hell. "The credits are false," Dee Dee wrote in 1997. "Johnny Thunders ranked on me for fourteen years, trying to make out like he wrote the song. What a low-life maneuver by those guys!" The online databases for both

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

and BMI, however, credit the song to just Dee Dee Ramone and Hell. In the Heartbreakers' live performances of the song, Thunders would often change the lyrics to more explicit ones.

The Ramones

On the Ramones' original recording of the song on their 1980 album ''

End of the Century ''End of the Century'' is the fifth studio album by the American punk rock band Ramones, released on February 4, 1980, through Sire Records. The album was the band's first to be produced by Phil Spector, though he had offered the band his assi ...

'', the song is credited to "D.D.Ramone/R.Hell". It appears on later editions of ''End of the Century'' (vinyl repressings and CD releases) credited to the Ramones as a whole, with no mention of Hell. The Ramones' version is called "Chinese Rock", with no ''s'' on the end. There is another slight lyrical difference between the versions: The Heartbreakers' lyrics begin, "Somebody called me on the phone/They said hey, is Dee Dee home", while the Ramones change "Dee Dee" to "Arty", an apparent reference to Arturo Vega, in whose loft the song is set. Vega was a long-time friend of the band and the designer of the Ramones' "presidential seal" logo. However, after Dee Dee left the band, Joey Ramone sometimes sang "Dee Dee" instead of "Arty" (as on the Ramones' 1991 live CD '' Loco Live'').

stated in interviews that he felt proud of the song, it being one of his best-known tracks, but that the song became a "pain in the ass" for him as he repeatedly tried to get clean and was mistakenly regarded by many fans as a "heroin

guru Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverentia ...

" promoting drug usage rather than just documenting it.''Hey Is Dee Dee Home''. 2003. Lech Kowalski Films.

References

*Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, ''Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk''. *Dee Dee Ramone with Veronica Kaufmann, ''Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones''. *Richard Hell, Citizine
interview by Mark Prindle
'

Notes

{{authority control 1977 songs 1980 songs Ramones songs Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers songs Songs about drugs Songs written by Richard Hell Songs written by Dee Dee Ramone Song recordings produced by Phil Spector