Album: Pleased to Meet Me
Year: 1987
. . .
Ain’t you had enough of this stuff?
“Can’t Hardly Wait” just might be the greatest song Paul Westerberg has ever written.
I’ve already written about the version they cut for Tim, and how putting it and “Nowhere is My Home” on that record (instead of “Dose of Thunder” and “Lay It Down Clown”) would made it absurdly great instead of just great.
But then what would have happened with Pleased to Meet Me, which was already short as it was? It’s possible that one of the Tommy songs or other outtakes might have been fine, and they could ended the whole thing with “Valentine,” and that’s a pretty great record. But as it’s configured, Pleased to Meet Me is my second-favorite Replacements album, so in this case, things pretty much worked out how they should have.
Because I love this version of “Can’t Hardly Wait,” strings and horns and everything else. Just like with “Here Comes a Regular” and “Answering Machine,” (and, arguably even “Treatment Bound“), they end an album with a song that sounds like nothing else on the record, and expanded their musical palette in unexpected ways.
I’ll write you a letter tomorrow
Tonight, I can’t hold a pen
Someone’s got a stamp that I can borrow
I promise not to blow the address again
The unforgettable guitar riff that opens the song — each note its own master of the universe — only goes a couple of times around before Paul sings that first verse, making the final incarnation of “Can’t Hardly Wait” a “missing-my-baby-cos-I’m-on-the-road” song as opposed to the early incarnations where it was more of a suicide song. And I doubt they really wanted to end both sides of Pleased to Meet Me with suicide songs.
A drunken, debauched road song: in that first verse, we’ve established that he’s too wasted to write a letter and even when he does, he might send it to the wrong place. And, of course, we’ve previously established all of the pitfalls inherent in just picking up the phone and making a call. So he’s just laying in a hotel room trying to sleep.
Lights that flash in the evening
Through a crack in the drapes
Here is where the horns come in, stabbing in between the lines and then picking up the riff for a bit before dropping out for the next verse. Which is almost identical to the Tim version, because it’s utterly fucking brilliant in any context, starting off with a great joke — c’mon Jesus, pull your weight!! — adding a cool Alex Chilton guitar fill and finally turning on a dime and breaking your heart.
Jesus rides beside me
He never buys any smokes
Hurry up, hurry up, ain’t you had enough of this stuff?
Ashtray floors, dirty clothes and filthy jokes
But it’s the stop-time in the middle of “hurry up, hurry up, ain’t you had enough of this stuff?” that utterly kills me: Chris Mars slamming the brakes and then letting go with a quick, fantastic roll — Mars kills it throughout, really, but this is his best moment in the song — as the horns stab directly at Paul’s heart, which is in fucking pieces at this point, which you can hear in his voice. Especially if you figure that he’s looking in the mirror for the next bit.
See you’re high and lonesome
Try, try and try
Here’s where the strings come slinking in: at the saddest moment of the song, like something from — oh, I don’t know — Big Star’s Third. And they damn well almost bring the song to its end, and the whole thing shuts down. Like maybe that’s all Paul’s got to say.
But instead — after longer than you might think — Mars starts it all back up, and where you would normally expect a guitar solo, it’s just the horns and strings wrapping themselves around each, and it’s long enough to be scandalous but short enough to be affecting. It all leads to the final verse of the song.
Lights that flash in the evening
Through a hole in the drapes
I’ll be home when I’m sleeping
I can’t hardly wait
It’s an amazing verse, filled with amazing instrumental tricks. Chilton’s (I assume) guitar fill after “lights that flash in the evening“, the Memphis Horns and strings swelling underneath “through a hole in the drapes,” Chris Mars abandoning his hi-hat for his floor tom after “I’ll be home when I’m sleeping” and, of course, one last full stop when Paul sings “I can’t hardly wait.”
While I know that a lot of this is studio trickery by meddling producer Jim Dickinson, as far as I’m concerned, it works. In spades. Not every fucking Replacements song needed to be two guitars, bass and drums, I loved the way that both the horns and strings sometimes disappeared and sometimes dominated, though in the coda, what dominated was Paul’s singing. As always.
I can’t wait
Hardly waaaaaaaaaaaait
I can’t wait
Hardly waaaaaaaaaaaait
I can’t waaaait
Hardly waaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeyyat
I can’t wait
Hardly waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait
I can’t wait
Hardly waaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit
And at the fade, the horns now fully playing the riff, Mars still right there, you can hear a faint chant of “can’t hardly wait” and realize that — once again — The Replacements have ended an album with a stone-cold classic song, making Pleased to Meet Me yet another casual miracle.
While I put Warehouse: Songs and Stories — eternally an embarrassment of riches! — at the top of my year-end list that year (and still rate it slightly higher), we were now dealing with incontrovertible proof that The Replacements were not just the great straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll band of the decade, but could have ended up being the greatest ever. After three straight albums of life-saving kickassery, it really and truly felt like The Replacements could do anything, and best of all, they were ours.
“Can’t Hardly Wait”
“Can’t Hardly Wait” Live in St. Paul, 2014
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