The Departed

Album: Ready to Die (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Ready To Die marked the return of guitarist James Williamson following the death on January 6, 2009 of Stooges axeman Ron Asheton. This song started out as a homage by Williamson to Asheton but frontman Iggy Pop expanded it into a solemn tribute to lost friends. Iggy explained to Mojo magazine: "In Ann Arbor and Detroit in the late '60s, early '70s, some of us were more 'us' than the others, with some dying on the young side. This was the first new piece James sent me after we started touring as Iggy & The Stooges again, and it was a giant pain-in-the-ass bitch motherfu--er epic to do.

    "It started out as an instrumental," he continued. "Just James on dobro and he called it 'Ron's Tune.' I didn't want to write a personal song, so it's more like, 'The party's over', or 'It's getting late.'"
  • The song quotes the riff from the classic 1969 Stooges number "I Wanna Be Your Dog," on which Asheton was the lead guitarist.

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