“I Wanna Be Sedated” is Secretly a Christmas Song
Though it’s largely the domain of pop music today, it’s not unheard of for rock stars to sell out for a Christmas single, and to be fair, they’re usually pretty good. Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run” is a mainstay, Tom Petty’s “Christmas All Over Again” is an underrated gem, and even Clapton gave us his version of “White Christmas” (many years post-sobriety, so, you know, not that kind). Punk legends the Ramones were no stranger to the holiday racket, having released the relatively obscure “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)” in 1987, but that’s not the only one. In fact, one of their best-known songs is secretly a Christmas song.
It’s not like it’s all that clear what “I Wanna Be Sedated” was about in the first place. The only clues we get from the lyrics are that the narrator is bored, demanding transport via wheelchair to either the airport or the venue of that night’s gig, and has lost control of his extremities and cognitive faculties. Well, it turns out the reason there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go is that, in the song, it’s Christmas.
As Joey Ramone explained before one performance, in 1977, the band was “on the road 360 days a year, and we went over to England, and we were there at Christmastime, and at Christmastime, 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.”
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It doesn’t explain much — it sounds like sedation is the opposite of what they wanted, there’s plenty to see in London just walking around outside, and surely they show British movies in British hotel rooms, too — but we’re not here to tell the Ramones how to live their lives. At least The Guns of Navarone kicks ass.
