Beat on the Brat

In *Beat on the Brat*, the story told is quite straightforward: Dee Dee Ramone described it as a true account, inspired by a scene that Joey Ramone witnessed. He saw someone attacking a child with a bat in a building lobby, and that's where the lyrics came from. The song, with its 2:32 runtime, captures that raw, fast energy that characterized the Ramones.

The recording of this track, like the rest of the Ramones' debut album, took place in just seven days, with a budget of $6,400. The production work was handled by Thomas Erdelyi and Craig Leon, while the sound engineering was done by Rob Freeman and Don Hünerberg. This album, released on April 23, 1976, by Sire Records, was the starting point for a band that formed in Forest Hills, New York, in 1974. The Ramones became key figures in the nascent *punk rock* scene, offering simple and direct compositions, in contrast to the complexity of other bands of the 70s.