[1] "Rockaway Beach" is composed in the key of A major, while Joey Ramone's vocal range spans from the low-note of E4 to the high-note of A5.

[1] The musical arrangement opens with an instrumental introduction, where a rhythm guitar part is played at high-speed using downstrokes with grinding distortion.

[12] AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine cites "Rockaway Beach" as being among the "finest set of songs" Ramones had written for Rocket to Russia.

The imagery puts you right in the middle of a hot New York summer in the mid-to-late '70s, and it's easy to feel as jubilant as the song (and Ramone) does.

[13] In his review of the anniversary edition, Zachary Hopskins from Slant Magazine ranks the song one of the group's "stone-cold classics: as likely to put a smile on one’s face and a bounce in one’s Chucks in 2017 as they were 40 years ago".