Well, the story about Johnny stealing Joey's girlfriend is true and Joey didn't ever really get over that and wrote LOTS of songs about it. But in fact this is not one of them. I used to think so too, this rumour was supported by lots of important Ramones biographies (the documentary, Monte Melnick's book etc.) but in his new book, Mickey Leigh, Joey's brother, disproves it.
The real story behind the song: Joey used to date a black girl when he was a teenager. Those girl's parents didn't want their daughter to go out with a white guy, so Joey and Mickey jokingly refered to them as the "KKK". It was - as some wise guy mentioned earlier - written years after that: in 1980, when Linda and Joey still were together.
I understand how this myth could get so big, it would be just too perfect with the circumstances: Johnny stealing Linda away from Joey and being a hardcore conservative and the timing of the release of the song was perfect, too, but - I have to say unfortunately - it's not the truth. Sorry, folks.
Well, the story about Johnny stealing Joey's girlfriend is true and Joey didn't ever really get over that and wrote LOTS of songs about it. But in fact this is not one of them. I used to think so too, this rumour was supported by lots of important Ramones biographies (the documentary, Monte Melnick's book etc.) but in his new book, Mickey Leigh, Joey's brother, disproves it. The real story behind the song: Joey used to date a black girl when he was a teenager. Those girl's parents didn't want their daughter to go out with a white guy, so Joey and Mickey jokingly refered to them as the "KKK". It was - as some wise guy mentioned earlier - written years after that: in 1980, when Linda and Joey still were together. I understand how this myth could get so big, it would be just too perfect with the circumstances: Johnny stealing Linda away from Joey and being a hardcore conservative and the timing of the release of the song was perfect, too, but - I have to say unfortunately - it's not the truth. Sorry, folks.