"Did punk begin with 'I'm Henry The 8th I Am'? The minimal production, the basic drums, the snotty sloppy carefree vocal delivery..."

"... the directly Ramones-inspiring, 4th wall breaking cry of 'Second Verse, same as the first'.. to what extent could this track be considered an overlooked antecendent of the punk rock movement?"

That's an internet discussion I encountered after reading jr565's comment — "in regards to Henry Viii - now we know where the Ramones got their 'second verse, same as the first' from" — on last night's post about the #1 songs of 1965.

Here's how the song looked as interpreted by Patty Duke (in her Cathy persona) on her old TV show in 1965:



Here's the adorable original Peter Noone (in his Herman persona):



Actually the original is Harry Champion (it's really a British music hall from 1910):




Also found on the internet: "A Cultural Dictionary of Punk, 1974-1982," by Nicholas Rombes, who has this entry on Herman’s Hermits:

A major influence on the Ramones , something that was widely acknowledged around the time of their first album’s release in April 1976. “The infusion of the Kinks, Herman’s Hermits, fake Mersey accents, DC5, MC5, and BCR into the Ramones’ music is all the more crucial, vital to the survival of rock ’n’ roll ,” wrote Gene Sculatti in 1976. Two years later, Roy Trakin noted that “ever so slowly evolving into the latter-day Herman’s Hermits they always sought to become, the Ramones have achieved a larger-than-life, almost cartoon-character status in the rock world.” But what did this mean, and how could the very roots of punk and even hardcore lie with a band like Herman’s Hermits?...

[T]heir best songs are so pure and balanced that it’s easy to understand how the Ramones and other mid-seventies bands were nostalgic for the energy, simplicity, and directness of songs like “I’m into Something Good,” “Listen People,” and “No Milk Today.” In 1978, Derek Leckenby told the New Wave fanzine Ballroom Blitz! (out of Dearborn Heights, Michigan) that “groups like the Stranglers and the Sex Pistols possess a great deal of enthusiasm and rock and roll energy that has been sorely lacking from the BBC.”

In fact, there is an underlying, melodic darkness to songs like “No Milk Today” that flies in the face of the band’s highly controlled image as clean-cut lads. If the Rolling Stones and others were openly embracing the emerging darkness of the sixties, Herman’s Hermits resisted, at least on the surface. The result is a sort of David Lynchian tension to this resistance, for darkness hinted at and fleetingly revealed is often more disturbing than darkness fully revealed. The achievement of the Ramones on their first three albums is all the more remarkable for how their music embodied the contradiction between pop sweetness and the utter degeneration of their time.

... a sort of David Lynchian tension to this resistance, for darkness hinted at and fleetingly revealed is often more disturbing than darkness fully revealed.

I love stuff like that. True or not! The ineffable light-darkness of Herman's Hermits. Think about it!