"53rd & 3rd" by The Ramones (VIDEO)
Listen to "53rd & 3rd" by The Ramones, No. 67 on our list of the 100 best NYC songs.
Wed Mar 7 2012
67. The Ramones, "53rd & 3rd" (1976)
Forest Hills' finest revealed the sordidness beneath their bubblegum exterior in this supposedly autobiographical Dee Dee--penned shocker—the epitome of pre-PC frankness—about a Midtown East corner teeming with male escorts. The chorus trades in deadpan comedy—"53rd & 3rd, you're the one they never pick"—but the bridge, in which our narrator murders his john in a homophobic rage, can't be laughed off. Still, the song as a whole is an invaluable relic, a profoundly ugly slice-of-life in the Mean Streets era.
