The Cover Uncovered: How The Ramones made ‘Too Tough To Die’
After the Ramones formed in 1974, they quickly became recognised as one of the leaders of the punk movement. Their debut self-titled album was a hit among critics, which included tracks such as ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’. The band, who donned leather jackets and ripped jeans, made a name for themselves by constantly playing lively shows, often at CBGBs.
However, the Ramones experimented with different sounds as the years progressed. Their 1978 album, Road to Ruin, incorporated acoustic guitars and ballads, with some of the tracks surpassing the three-minute mark – a rare feat for the band. In 1980, they worked with popular producer Phil Spector on End of the Century, which Johnny Ramone declared as “just watered-down Ramones. It’s not the real Ramones.”
By 1984, the band decided to return to their roots with their eighth studio album, Too Tough to Die. With a title inspired by a near-fatal beating recieved by Johnny Ramone, the album incorporated much harsher and abrasive sounds and followed a similar recording process to their 1976 debut – which was recorded live in the studio. Johnny shared, “As we got ready to make Too Tough To Die, we were focused in the same direction, and it made a difference. We knew we needed to get back to the kind of harder material we’d become known for. The pop stuff hadn’t really worked, and we knew we were much better off doing what we did best.”
According to authors Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz, the album was “the Ramones’ response to America’s burgeoning hard-core punk scene, and did much to restore the band’s musical credibility … Too Tough to Die reclaimed the Ramone’s original values of energy, catchiness, and brevity without resorting to retro pandering.”
The band needed some good cover art to accompany the album, so they enlisted the help of photographer George DuBose. Johnny was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, starring Malcolm McDowell as the charismatic Alex DeLarge, who leads a small gang of ‘droogs’. DuBose shared, “Johnny wanted a picture that would evoke memories of the gang in A Clockwork Orange.“ The photographer took the band to a tunnel in Central Park, New York, near the Central Park Zoo, to get his desired shot. Because of the band’s popularity, their faces didn’t need to appear on the cover; however, DuBose initially intended to do so.
Yet the final image of the band’s silhouettes was actually a “lucky accident”, according to DuBose. Whilst taking the image, his flash failed to go off, resulting in the mysterious-looking photograph. The Ramones are shrouded in blue lighting and dry ice fog, giving the band an image that matches Too Tough to Die‘s intriguing sound.
Upon the release of Too Tough to Die, critics were much more receptive to the album’s sound than to their last few efforts. Rolling Stone declared the album “a return to fighting trim by the kings of stripped-down rock & roll.” Sadly for the band, the album only managed to chart at 171 on the US Billboard 200 and number 63 on the UK Album Charts. Still, the Ramones proved to fans and critics that they hadn’t lost what made them so important in the first place.
