The song is an emotionally charged commentary on the Bitburg controversy from earlier that year, in which U.S. president Ronald Reagan had paid a state visit to a German World War II cemetery and gave a speech where numerous Waffen-SS soldiers were buried.

It was eventually retitled "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)", and appeared on the band's album Animal Boy, released in 1986.

The song was written in reaction to the visit paid by U.S. president Ronald Reagan to a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, on May 5, 1985.

The visit was part of a trip paying tribute to the victims of Nazism and celebrating West Germany's revival as a powerful, democratic ally of the U.S.[4] Reagan's plan to visit the Bitburg cemetery had been criticized in the United States, Europe, and Israel because among the approximately 2,000 German soldiers buried there were 49 members of the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, which committed many atrocities.

"[8] In his remarks immediately after the cemetery visit, Reagan said that "the crimes of the SS must rank among the most heinous in human history", but noted that many of those interred at Bitburg were "simply soldiers in the German army...

"[14] David Corn described the beginning of the refrain—"Bonzo goes to Bitburg/then goes out for a cup of tea/As I watched it on TV/somehow it really bothered me"—as "snarled" by Joey over a "power-pop beat and melodic hooks galore.

"[13] Salon arts editor Bill Wyman wrote of Johnny Ramone "lob[bing] guitar bombs" amid the song's "Spectorian, rushing production" and of "Joey's pained, pleading voice.

"[16] Scott Miller concurred, noting that the song "doesn't attempt an airtight indictment of Reagan," but perhaps more importantly excels at just "putting across the honest feeling of being impotently rankled.

"[10] The original jacket of the single included a photograph of Reagan speaking at the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp just hours before his trip to Bitburg; this image was removed in subsequent pressings.

"[10] The Ramones' Animal Boy LP, released by both Sire and Beggars Banquet in 1986, included "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg".

The title was altered to "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)" to placate Johnny, a staunch conservative and fervent Reagan supporter.

[19]In the annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll conducted by The Village Voice, "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" was ranked the fifth best single of 1985, where the editor wrote that it was "a pleasure to see the Ramones place so high after the intrepid Seymour Stein refused to release their most overt political act.