The classic punk song written in Stephen King’s basement
Whether it’s Hans Erdmann’s legendary score for Nosferatu, or the skeletal punk of Misfits, the horror genre has always fostered a rather close relationship with the music world, particularly within the bone-chilling realm of the so-called ‘King of Horror’, Stephen King.
A self-professed music obsessive and an underrated guitar talent, music has always been a big part of King’s output. Once you look past the blood-thirsty drain-dwelling killer clowns, axe-murderers, and supernatural scaries, the author’s output is filled to the brim with references to his eclectic tastes, so it is no surprise that, when his various works have been translated onto the silver screen, soundtracking tends to be a pretty big deal.
Within King’s 1982 novel, Pet Sematary, the author made reference to the harbingers of New York punk, the Ramones, and their defining moment, ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, so when it came time to turn the tale of supernatural resurrection into a feature film, the decision to approach the Queens-formed outfit was something of an inevitability.
The Ramones were always keen to expand their output into the realm of television and film; over the course of their illustrious existence, the CBGB favourites appeared in everything from The Simpsons to an advert for Steel Reserve beer. Unsurprisingly, then, they jumped at the chance to write and record an original song for the soundtrack of 1989’s Pet Sematary.
Reportedly, King invited the band to his home in Maine, where he lent Dee Dee Ramone a copy of the novel, prompting him to immediately retire to the basement to read it. Whether or not the songwriter actually did read the entire book remains unknown, but shortly thereafter he returned from King’s basement – which, incidentally, would make a good setting for a horror flick – having penned the lyrics for the Ramones song, ‘Pet Sematary’.
Alongside the band’s legendary ‘Sheena Is A Punk Rocker’ making an appearance in the final film, the track that Dee Dee wrote in a matter of minutes in Stephen King’s basement ended up playing over the final credits of the Mary Lambert-directed film. Perhaps more importantly than that, though, it ended up becoming one of the punk outfit’s signature songs in the wake of its release as a single.
Becoming a major radio hit and a staple of their late-period live shows, ‘Pet Sematary’ was a triumph for the Ramones, signifying the fact that they had lost none of their original punk lustre, even if the CBGB scene that first produced the band had largely fallen by the wayside by the time 1989 rolled around.
What’s more, the single perfectly reflected the relationship between punk rock and the horror genre, a connection which had previously only been espoused by distinctly more cult outfits, like The Cramps or Misfits, for instance. Not only that, but the success of the single also showed there was a degree of mainstream appeal for that spookily abrasive sound.
Then again, according to Marky Ramone, the success of ‘Pet Sematary’ might have been one of the major factors in Dee Dee’s decision to break from the Ramones that very same year, chasing a solo career which would soon produce one of the worst hip-hop albums of all time, Standing in the Spotlight, so perhaps the impact of the song wasn’t all that great after all.
