Tone and Style
The song's lyrics, with their explicitly serious content, are a departure from the Ramones' usual style. Spin's Jon Young calls it "part exorcism and part slapstick comedy". David Corn describes the beginning of the refrain—"Bonzo goes to Bitburg/then goes out for a cup of tea/As I watched it on TV/somehow it really bothered me"—as "snarled" by Joey over a "power-pop beat and melodic hooks galore". Salon.com arts editor Bill Wyman writes of Johnny Ramone "lob guitar bombs" amid the song's "Spectorian, rushing production" and of "Joey's pained, pleading voice". Douglas Wolk fits the song into his general view of Joey Ramone as different from his many musical imitators in that "he never, ever sneered": "the tone of 'Bonzo Goes to Bitburg'", writes Wolk, "isn't contemptuous, just confused and angry."
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