Release
"Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" was issued in Great Britain as a 45 rpm 12" by Beggars Banquet Records. The single's first B-side, "Go Home Ann", by Dee Dee and Mickey Leigh, was produced by Ed Stasium and mixed by Motörhead lead singer Lemmy. The second B-side, "Daytime Dilemma (Dangers of Love)", had previously appeared on the Ramones' 1984 album, Too Tough to Die. Sources at the Ramones' U.S. label, Sire Records, and its parent company, Warner Bros. Records, gave differing reasons for not releasing the single in America: The Sire products manager said the decision was "both financial and political"; an anonymous Warner Bros. source claimed, "It just wasn't considered a good enough record." The original jacket of the single included a photograph of Reagan speaking at the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp just hours before his trip to Bitburg; this image was removed in subsequent pressings. Melody Maker blamed its elimination on pressure from the "Moral Majority, the Patriotic League of the Alamo, and the SS."
The Ramones' Animal Boy LP, released by both Sire and Beggars Banquet in 1986, included "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg". According to Robert Christgau, the album version was remixed. The title was altered to "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)" to placate Johnny, a staunch conservative, fervent Reagan supporter. "Go Home Ann" has never been included on an official full-length Ramones original or compilation album.
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