The 1950s, Tarzan, and the Ramones’ rocking teenage rebellion: “Everybody was a Sheena!”

The Ramones’ 1977 song ‘Sheena Is a Punk Rocker’ fused surf-pop and teenage rebellion with the band’s interest in 1950s pop culture, B-movies and comic-book characters. Its success helped bring punk into the charts and drew on the image of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, reimagined by Joey Ramone as a modern rebel.

Joey said the idea combined Sheena’s primal character with punk and New York’s discotheques and surf culture. Released as a single from *Rocket to Russia*, the song reached number 22 in the UK and number 81 in the US, becoming the Ramones’ first charting song and, according to the article, the first punk song to enter the US charts. Joey recalled that many girls in New York adopted the name Sheena after the song came out.