The Ramones have been described in many ways, but I wonder if the best word to sum them up would be “aspirational”? For reasons we don’t need to go into now, I was looking through the track listings of their albums and was struck by the number of song titles that say “I wanna” in one way or another.
Here is a list of all the “I wanna”s, along with a few “I don’t wanna”‘s:
- I wanna be your boyfriend
- Now I wanna sniff some glue
- I don’t wanna go down to the basement
- I don’t wanna walk around with you
- I don’t wanna be learned/I don’t wanna be tamed
- Now I wanna be a good boy
- I wanna be well
- I just want to have something to do
- I don’t want you
- I wanna be sedated
- I want you around
- I wanna live
- I don’t want to grow up
Do the ‘don’t wannas’ count as aspirational? More stroppy to my way of thinking.