I Just Want to Have Something to Do

About I Just Want to Have Something to Do

"I Just Want to Have Something to Do" is a song credited to the Ramones but was written by Joey Ramone and was released as the opening song of the band's 1978 album Road to Ruin. It was also released on several of the band's compilation albums. It was also used in the film Rock 'n' Roll High School. Allmusic critic Donald A. Guarisco described "I Just Want to Have Something to Do" as "one of the best expressions of frustrated desire to ever grace the world of pop music." The song is taken at midtempo, slower than the typical Ramones song. The lyrics describe the singer's need to connect with the listener, and themes include ambivalence and anomie. Authors Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz comment on the surprising rhyme of Second Avenue with chicken vindaloo. Ramones biographer Everett True calls this rhyme "evocative." Music professor Robert Pattison suggests that this lyric was too much "fun," as opposed to "joyous," to be respectable enough to be included in a freshman anthology, but he nonetheless considers it a "rock classic."Guarisco considers the music to effectively evoke the frustration described in the lyrics by using "twisted, ascending note patterns" in the verses to create a "yearning feel." He also states that the music in the refrain enhances the yearning effect with its "sense of swing." True states that the song evokes a sense of "pent-up energy" through "shards of guitar and feedback" which "riccochet past your ear." Guarisco also praises Joey Ramone's lead vocal for the way his snarling and pleading build to an angry peak in the refrain."I Just Want to Have Something to Do" was included on several Ramones compilation albums, including Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology in 1999 and Greatest Hits in 2006. more »

Year:

1978

2:42

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Hanging out on Second Avenue
Eating chicken vindaloo
I just want to be with you
I just want to have something to do

Tonight, tonight, tonight
Tonight, tonight, well alright
Tonight, tonight, tonight
Tonight, tonight, tonight

Wait, now
Wait, now

Hanging out all by myself
I don't want to be with anybody else
I just want to be with you
I just want to have something to do

Tonight, tonight, tonight
Tonight, tonight, well alright
Tonight, tonight, tonight
Tonight, tonight, tonight

Wait, now
Wait, now
Wait, now
Wait, now

Hanging out all by myself
I don't want to be with anybody else
I just want to be with you
I just want to have something to do

Tonight, tonight, tonight
Tonight, tonight, well alright
Tonight, tonight, tonight
Tonight, tonight, tonight

Tonight, tonight, tonight
Tonight, tonight, tonight

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Ramones

The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group. Despite achieving only limited commercial success, the band was a major influence on the punk rock movement in both the United States and the United Kingdom. more »

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