Credit: Far Out / IMDB

‘Domino’: The Cramps song that showed the true horror of the 1950s

Tue 8 April 2025 23:00, UK

In the 1950s, the United States of America desperately wanted the world to believe they’d more or less created a utopia for their citizens. Excelling in every way they could on every possible level. This was despite the US government waging a protracted, almost single-minded war on pretty much everyone who wasn’t a rich, heterosexual, white, Anglo-Saxon protestant. Even those who believed they fell into those categories lived their day-to-day lives under the shadow of the nuclear bomb. It was among this rot that the members of The Cramps came of age.

Despite everything, this band of leather-clad, shrieking freaks were a note-perfect product of not one but two times. Both the one they were born into and the one they were formed in. The 1970s, particularly the later years of that decade, were obsessed with the ’50s. They were the years of Grease, Happy Days, Sha-Na-Na and countless others. The Cramps, like those aforementioned acts, shows, and films, were a throwback to the previous two decades. Unlike them, though, the very last thing The Cramps were was nostalgic for them.

For The Cramps, their 1950s weren’t the kind depicted in Archie Comics, at least until the Afterlife With Archie series in 2013. Their 1950s was one of death, decay and decadence. The movies weren’t From Here To Eternity or A Star Is Born. They were gory, shocking, yet sensuous B-movies like Voodoo Woman and Man Beast. Their music wasn’t Elvis or Perry Como. It was Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. They were the dirt under the decade’s fingernails. The shadows in the corner that mainstream culture begged you not to look at them, but they were only getting bigger.

However, punks perverting the nostalgia of the 1950s was hardly anything new. All you have to do to see that is look at the tiresome chucklefucks in the British punk scene. The ones that sought to piss off the older generation who’d fought, killed and died resisting the Nazis by wearing swastikas on their arm like the witless sheep they were. The true genius of what The Cramps did was not a mere perversion of what came before but a reflection.

How did The Cramps reflect the 1950s?

Despite their still-eyebrow-raising looks and frontman Lux Interior’s still-spine-chilling screech, a lot of The Cramps’ work were reworkings of pretty standard pieces of 1950s pop culture. One of their best songs took the name of an iconic 1950s B-movie, ‘I Was A Teenage Werewolf’. The track that went viral thanks to Jenna Ortega’s iconic dance scene in Wednesday, ‘Goo Goo Muck’, was a cover of a 1962 novelty hit by Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads. Best of all of them, though, is how one of their most beloved songs came from a genuine, bonafide rock legend.

Right at the heart of their debut EP, the splendidly titled Gravest Hits, The Cramps have a song called ‘Domino’. This swaggering, propulsive song comes thrashing in on a primitive, scything guitar riff. It’s as simple as a sledgehammer to the head and twice as effective. Lux, in his best Elvis drawl, builds the picture of the titular Domino, a cat in town with “Long sideburns and a crazy smile”. He modulates his own voice like it’s going through a retro Fender amp with the tremolo whacked up to ten, at least until he heralds Poison Ivy’s guitar solo with a blood-curdling howl.

The joke at the end of it all is that ‘Domino’ is actually a pretty faithful cover of an obscure Roy Orbison track originally recorded in 1956, which is the ultimate message of The Cramps as a band. If you see something in them that scares you, disturbs you, or even just bothers you, chances are it’s an artefact of the time most Americans hold up as their country’s peak.

The Cramps themselves couldn’t agree with you more, though. The 1950s, in all their Joseph McCarthy and Jim Crow-worshipping glory, were frightening. Intensely so. If it took The Cramps for you to understand that, then it’s just as well you do now. If you don’t, well, you’re probably overjoyed that a lot of extremely powerful men are doing their best to bring America back to those times. When they come for you, we’ll try to have some sympathy.