“GABBA GABBA HEY, GABBA GABBA HEY! ....”

“Gabba Gabba Hey” is inspired by a movie scene when the freaks rise and take over, shouting, “We accept you, one of us, Gooble, Gooble.” The line is from a 1932 horror movie called Freaks and was first chanted by the Ramones in a song called Pinhead. It became the Ramones ‘catchphrase. It probably means that the Ramones (freaks) accept the audience as “one of them.”

 In the 1950s, when Rock' n 'Roll took the country by storm, Elvis Presley shocked the nation. In the late 1970s, a new and powerful music-based energy was making a massive cultural breakthrough called punk rock. 
Punk rock is assertive and aggressive, and punk rock is energetic.

 

The Ramones are a definitive punk statement. They cut Rock 'n' Roll down to its bare essentials—four chords, a simple, catchy melody, and irresistibly inane lyrics—infusing it with punk energy, a brash attitude, and a loud, fast new sound. The Ramones significantly influenced the 1970s punk movement in the United States and the United Kingdom.
To understand the Ramones, they must be traced back to Forest Hills, Queens, NY. Forest Hills were built at the turn of the century as the living embodiment of the American dream. Ramone's early life in Forest Hills consisted of listening to music, taking drugs, and dropping abandoned TV sets out of windows. This search to drown out the boredom would manifest throughout communities like Forest Hills. Coupled with a sense of rejection among displaced, alienated teens, it would bring on the birth pains of American punk. Never before had adolescents had the time and access to enough technology to make a loud noise to beat the boredom.

 

One-way ticket

The Ramones, 1976 ‘Da Bruddas’ takes the subway to Manhattan from their hometown, Queens. They couldn’t afford guitar cases then and carried their instruments to rehearsals in plastic carrier bags.

Visual Image

The main key to the Ramones' identity was the black motorcycle leather jacket. Johnny Ramone was a movie nut and loved The Wild One. The black motorcycle leather jacket was how he saw himself: bold and all-American rebel. 
Their fashion emphasised minimalism, and the image perfectly matched their street-tough music and short, simple songs.

 

The Wild One, 1953

The movie featured Marlon Brando wearing a Perfecto leather jacket.

“The studio staff were a little afraid of these strange guys in leather jackets.” 

-Johnny Ramone

 

Source:

PUNK- The Whole Story Foreword by Deborah Harry

The Ramones Biography, Rolling Stone

The Ramones Biography, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame