Re: (TV) Hell on Chinese Rocks credits

[Bob Beatty <bobjb2002@yahoo.ca>]

Re. Chinese Rocks, here's a Hell interview where he talks about the song's
history & who wrote what, & who's credited.
http://www.markprindle.com/hell-i.htm
INTERVIEW QUOTE: "

[Interviewer]: ...Yeah, OK. Another thing I was going to
mention when you were talking 
about memory and Please Kill Me and everything
is the fact that 
everybody seems to remember writing bChinese Rocks.b
Everybody claims 
that they wrote that song. 
HELL: People say they remember
doing what? 

Writing the song bChinese Rocks.b 
HELL: Yeah. Well, anybody
who takes anything Jerry Nolan or Johnny Thunders says at face value -- Ha!
Why, what was his problem? He was just self-promoting? What was his problem?
HELL: Well, because they wanted to have a claim on that song. They had nothing
whatsoever to do with it. They also said shit about me when I left the 
band;
they acted like they kicked me out or something. Johnny never said
 anything
like that, but Jerry was known to say stuff like that. If he 
didn't actually
say that, he hinted at it just because it was like this 
New York gang
mentality where they were offended that I left the group, 
so they had to make
it out to be that they never wanted me anyway. And I
 never had any bad
feelings; I had a great time in that band and I was 
happy in it up until the
time where I wanted to try to do stuff that 
wasn't really right for that
band. I was the fucking lead singer. I did 
most of the singing and wrote most
of the songs. But yeah, it's all 
silliness. Water way under the bridge. I
don't really give a shit about 
the bChinese Rocksb thing. What happened
is really clear, and the 
songwriting credits can all be checked at BMI. The
song is by me and Dee
 Dee, but Dee Dee did 75 percent of it. I mean, all I
did was write two 
verses out of three. Dee Dee wrote the music, the concept
was his, he's 
basically responsible for it. But he brought me the song; he
didn't even
 know Johnny and Jerry, but we were friends and he thought the
band was 
great. And when the Ramones didn't want to do the song he said,
bLook, 
I've written one verse of this song with the chorus and it's about
heroin, how about you write the rest of it and it's yours?b And that's 
what
he did. I say it all the time: when I was in the Heartbreakers, 
everybody
sang the songs that they wrote and I sang bChinese Rocksb -- 
there are
plenty of live tapes to prove it. Then I stopped performing it
 after the
Heartbreakers and they kept playing it. That was their 
biggest song, so they
wanted to take credit for it. Stupid."

-A search ofB  "Chinese Rocks" at ASCAP's site
http://www.ascap.com/Home/ace-title-search/index.aspxconfirms what Hell says,
that the song's legally co-credited to Dee Dee & him, i.e. Douglas Colvin &
Richard Meyers. A search at ASCAP at first yields abbreviated info. about the
song & shows just one writer, Dee Dee. But if you click for further info. you
see more details including a writing credit to the two writers. I guess
lawyers eventually got it all sorted it out after Thunders & Nolan had
mischievously tried to claim on L.A.M.F. the song was written, not by Hell &
Dee Dee Ramone, but by post-Hell Heartbreakers.
And there's that extra verse of Hell's that doesn't appear in the post-Hell
Heartbreakers' or the Ramones' version, but which Hell sang when he was in the
Heartbreakers which goes:
QUOTE "When they
checked me in at dawn (or something)/I heard they thought my
pulse was 
gone/I found that I was happy to die/and Chinese Rocks is the
reason 
why."


--- On Sun, 7/15/12, Phil Obbard <pobbard@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Phil Obbard <pobbard@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: (TV) 'Don't Die' question?
To: "tv@obbard.com" <tv@obbard.com>
Received: Sunday, July 15, 2012, 5:19 PM

I'll have to check the credits when I am home, but I believe the 3 release
Neon Boys tracks (all sung by Hell) are credited lyrics to Hell, music to
Hell/Verlaine, but I could be wrong.

There is a lot of looseness in credits
back then; if Verlaine really did co-write the music for "High Heeled
Wheels",
then he deserved a credit for "You Gotta Lose" that I am sure he does not
get.
And who can forget how many tracks the Heartbreakers "borrowed" from Hell
once
he left, or added their names to the credits? "Chinese Rocks" had his name
stripped from the credits, "Love Comes in Spurts" was given new lyrics to
become "One Track Mind", etc...

--Phil



________________________________
From: postitnote <postitnote@sbcglobal.net>
To: tv@obbard.com
Sent: Sunday,
July 15, 2012 2:11 AM
Subject: Re: (TV) 'Don't Die' question?

Okay, thanks.
I've got that cleared up now.

On, the Neon Boys though, even though some
songs are Richard Hell songs.B  wasn't all of the music written by Tom though?
I mean, Richard sings some of the songs where the 'lyrics' are his.B 

I also
remember an interview w/ Tom and I believe it was British (an early one) and
he was asked about Hell's music outside of Television/Neon Boys.B  Tom said
sthg like Hell borrowed some of his music, as he could hear it in some of the
songs.B  Tom said that he didn't really mind though.B  I'm sorry that I don't
remember which interview that was as I read that awhile back and my memory
sucks.

I'm not putting down Richard as he's def a talented guy.

Is this
valid or am I off-base?

--- On Sat, 7/14/12, Phil Obbard <pobbard@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> From: Phil Obbard <pobbard@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: (TV) 'Don't
Die' question?
> To: "tv@obbard.com" <tv@obbard.com>
> Date: Saturday, July
14, 2012, 5:36 PM
> It's a Voidoids demo v. 1979. It
> appears, along with a
similar demo of "Time",
> on the same release from Shake (and later
Overground) that
> gave us the only
> Neon Boys material we've heard to date.
>
> So "Time" and "Don't Die" have
> nothing do to with Television, other
than being Richard Hell
> solo material.
> More info on Keith's
> site:
http://www.thewonder.co.uk/facts/bandrels.htm#Singles
>
>
> --Phil
>
________________________________
>B  From: postitnote
<postitnote@sbcglobal.net>
> To: tv@obbard.com
> Sent: Saturday, July 14,
2012 8:17 PM
> Subject: Re: (TV)
> 'Don't Die' question?
>B 
> I wonder if
anyone could clear this up for me?B  There
> is the song attributed to the Neon
Boys called 'Don't Die'
> (great song).B 
>
> I
> have this song listed as a
Neon Boys song but I noticed in
> some comments that
> people are saying that
this recording is actually a demo
> played by Richard
> Hell and the Voidoids
for Sire Records.B  I still will
> presume that it was
> actually written by
Tom and the lyrics were done by Hell
> (they made a great
> team).B  But so the
recording is actually Richard and
> the Voidoids playing it,
> instead of the
Neon Boys?B  Is that true?
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