The Cramps were the sound of everything that the United States excelled at but needed to ignore. Blending punk and hillbilly country with lyrics about creeps, monsters, and sexual degeneracy, The Cramps were the rock equivalent of a B-movie.

But it all worked so well and for such a long time. Against the odds and often flying in the face of public decency, The Cramps fashioned themselves into one of the most important rock bands of all time.

I love this band and everything it stood for. These are the 10 best songs by The Cramps.

Top 10 Greatest Songs by The Cramps

10. “Garbageman”

Many punk bands were formed in the mid-70s in the U.S. And most of the ones that could afford it moved down to New York City, the Mecca for the music movement.

The Cramps weren’t the only out-of-state weirdos. Like Misfits, they loved gore and shlocky B-movies. Unlike Misfits, and “Garbageman” shows, they weren’t afraid to get dirty or risk safety or their reputation in search of great music. I have friends who owe their underground playing careers to these kinds of songs.

9. “God Damn Rock n’ Roll”

The Cramps were as much an act as the lion tamer who risks getting eaten each night by his pet. The psychobilly band started as a journey of discovery. Lux Interior, Poison Ivy and their bandmates were looking for the evil things that made modern music tick.

Years later, on “God Damn Rock n’ Roll,” The Cramps let you know that their motifs haven’t changed. It’s “The kinda stuff that don’t save souls.”

8. “Primitive”

In both sound and, indeed, as a title, “Primitive” best sums up The Cramps. However, creating the band’s body of work took a lot of brains and bravery.

An early track found on the “Psychedelic Jungle” record, “Primitive”, is inspired by the values of early rock and country music. Interior confidently states: “That’s How I Live/Primitive/I Take What You Give.” And I wholly believe him, and Jim Morrison couldn’t have said it better.

7. “What’s Inside a Girl”

As censorship of rock records became a bigger topic in the 1980s U.S., The Cramps revved up their shock tactics. The album “A Date with Elvis” included numbers with titles like “Can Your Pussy Do the Dog?” or “How Far Can Too Far Go?”

But it was Poison Ivy’s country licks and Lux Interior’s demented, lust-filled singing that made “What’s Inside a Girl” the album’s most memorable track. I am afraid to listen to this with the lights turned off.

6. “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns”

The Cramps didn’t stop or mellow with age. By the 1980s, in fact, the group was taking advantage of the rise of the music video and spitting back some of its trademark low-culture-inspired shlock into the faces of the American public.

“Bikini Girls with Machine Guns” was funny, crass, and as good as what the band had produced in the late 1970s. And, I am not ashamed to admit that I heard this on a later re-run of Beavis * Butthead first.

5. “She Said”

Ramones had reduced songs to two minutes. The Sex Pistols had the writing of three power chords. But nobody took more away from the standard pop music format than The Cramps. They didn’t even have a bass player some of the time.

In doing so, on “She Said,” The Cramps end up sounding like drug-crazed street people captured while attempting some kind of ceremony. It’s great nighttime music.

4. “Goo Goo Muck”

At the end of the day, all this punk-rock and psychobilly music is just demented, teenagerish fun, right? Well, The Cramps did find a source of perpetual youth through it.

“Goo Goo Muck” is about roaming the streets after sunset looking for trouble and, well, a few things that even rock music lyrics can’t quite accommodate. I think that it’s one of the best songs by The Cramps.

3. “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”

The Cramps were obsessed with the kind of horror B-movies that never won any awards. But, judging by the way the quartet looked on the cover of “Songs the Lord Taught Us,” the musicians seemed to have been living in their personal version of a horror movie for a while.

It’s Bryan Gregory and Poison Ivy’s minimalist, fuzz-drenched guitar licks that make this song what it is.

2. “New Kind of Kick”

What’s rock n’ roll good for if it doesn’t thrill you? The journey of Cramps was always to find something new, and possibly illegal, to keep their rock n’ roll on the edge.

The manic psychobilly sounds of “New Kind of Kick” are really an anthem for freedom from dull, repetitive pop music and its stars.

1. “Human Fly”

The Cramps had the right ideas from the start. “Human Fly” was the opening song on the band’s first EP, “Gravest Hits.” It was written by Poison Ivy Rorschach and Lux Interior. It was produced by another misfit, Big Star’s Alex Chilton.

And, while the other kids in bands dreamed of being heroic figures, The Cramps talked about “having a got a garbage brain” and possessing “96 eyes.”

It’s sinister, dirty-sounding and few frontmen ever matched Lux Interior’s intensity. This is greatest song by The Cramps.