Бонзо едет в Битбург: Протест Рамонс против визита Рейгана

"Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" is a protest song by American punk rock band the Ramones. It was issued as a single in the UK by Beggars Banquet Records in mid 1985. The song is an emotionally charged commentary on the Bitburg controversy from earlier that year, in which U. S. president Ronald Reagan had paid a state visit to a German World War II cemetery and gave a speech where numerous Waffen SS soldiers were buried. Lyrically, the song was a departure from the usual Ramones topics. While not commercially successful, it was critically well received. The 1985 single did not receive an American release. As an import, however, the record became a hit on U. S. college radio. It was eventually retitled "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)", and appeared on the band's album Animal Boy, released in 1986. This second version of the title is the one used on subsequent live and compilation albums.

The song was written in reaction to the visit paid by U. S. president Ronald Reagan to a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, on May 5, 1985. Reagan laid a wreath at the cemetery and then gave a public address at a nearby air base. The visit was part of a trip paying tribute to the victims of Nazism and celebrating West Germany's revival as a powerful, democratic ally of the U. S.

Reagan's plan to visit the Bitburg cemetery had been criticized in the United States, Europe, and Israel because among the approximately 2,000 German soldiers buried there were 49 members of the Waffen SS, the combat arm of the SS, which committed many atrocities. Among those vehemently opposed to the trip were Jewish and veterans' groups and both houses of the U. S. Congress. Employed as an epithet for Reagan, Bonzo is actually the name of the chimpanzee title character in Bedtime for Bonzo, a 1951 comedy starring Reagan. The phrase also echoes the title of the film's sequel, Bonzo Goes to College (1952), though Reagan did not appear in that picture. Before departing for Germany, Reagan ignited more controversy when he expressed his belief that the soldiers buried at Bitburg "were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." In his remarks immediately after the cemetery visit, Reagan said that "the crimes of the SS must rank among the most heinous in human history", but noted that many of those interred at Bitburg were "simply soldiers in the German army There were thousands of such soldiers for whom Nazism meant no more than a brutal end to a short life." Discussing the inspiration for the song, Ramones lead singer Joey Ramone, a Jewish man, explained that the president "sort of shit on everybody." Interviewed in 1986, he said,
We had watched Reagan going to visit the SS cemetery on TV and were disgusted. We're all good Americans, but Reagan's thing was like forgive and forget. How can you forget six million people being gassed and roasted? Joey Ramone shared writing credit with Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone and Ramones producer and former Plasmatics bassist/keyboardist Jean Beauvoir. Commentators on the song tended to suggest that Joey was its primary author. Mickey Leigh, Joey's brother, who was particularly close with Dee Dee, claimed that while "everyone believed Joey had been the impetus to write the song it was actually Dee Dee." David Corn described 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." Douglas Wolk fit the song into his general view of Joey Ramone as different from his many musical imitators in that "he never, ever sneered," adding that the song's tone "isn't contemptuous, just confused and angry." Scott Miller concurred, noting that the song "doesn't attempt an airtight indictment of Reagan," but perhaps more importantly excels at just "putting across the honest feeling of being impotently rankled."

"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." Melody Maker blamed its elimination on pressure from the "Moral Majority, the Patriotic League of the Alamo, and the SS." "Go Home Ann" was never included on another Ramones release until the 2022 box set, The Sire Albums: 1981 1989, in which it was included on the LP of B sides and demos.

The "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" single did not chart highly in the UK, Though available only as an import in 1985, it was put into rotation by many American college radio stations, and record stores that handled imports reported robust sales. The single was also a major critical success. In his review of Animal Boy, Rolling Stones David Fricke called the song "brilliant". He wrote that it "vividly captures the sense of helplessness and confusion felt by rock youth in the Age of Reagan". In his book Music: What Happened?, Scott Miller includes it among his list of best songs from 1986,