B-side, 1987
. . .
Of course, when “Don’t Let’s Start” came out as a 12″ single — a full year after They Might Be Giants came out, I should mention — it wasn’t the A side that grabbed me, but rather the lead track on the b-side, entitled “We’re The Replacements,” which — weirdly enough — was one of two songs written about The Replacements that year.
The other one, of course, was “The Replacements Song” by a Bay Area (I think) all-girl (I think) band called The Furies, and remains the only of the 2705 Certain Songs I wasn’t listening to when I wrote about it. That was because their 1987 album Fun Around The World was so obscure that it never even made any .mp3 blogs. However, just this second, while writing this, I discovered that just last month, someone uploaded the entire Fun Around The World album to YouTube, which I will have to investigate further after I finish this post.
That said, I’m pretty sure I heard “We’re The Replacements” first; I certainly loved it more, as it was a hilarious bit of piss-taking from start to finish. According to John Linnell, the idea came for the song listening to Let it Be at a friend’s apartment, and he kinda conflated the band’s reputation for wildness with “(Theme From) The Monkees.”
But, of course, it doesn’t sound like either group, opening with a drum machine approximating the drum intro from The Clash’s “I Fought The Law” followed by some Flansburgh guitar rumbling leading into Linnell’s organ, as the whole thing turns into a vocal-drenched 50’s pastiche.
Hi, we’re the Replacements (Hiiiiiiii)
Hi, we’re the Replacements (Hiiiiiiii)
Hi, we’re the Replacements (Hiiiiiiii)
And we’re playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band (We’re playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band)We’re having a good time (We’rrrrrrre)
We’re having a good time (We’rrrrrrre)
We’re having a good time (We’rrrrrrre)
Rock ‘n’ rollin’ ’til the break of dawn (Rock ‘n’ rollin’ ’til the break of dawn)
In subsequent interviews, John Flansburgh has downplayed that the song was about the actual Replacements, that it was more of a pun for being on the road and replacing the artists that just played that city or some shit. But c’mon! Given what I’d seen while interacting with the Replacements in both 1985 and 1987, it felt too observed to be that general. Especially this verse:
Hey, where’s Tommy? Someone find Tommy
We’re out on the road
Moving equipment, where’s the equipment
Soon we’re going home
That said, one of the reasons that maybe they wanted to somewhat distance themselves from the song was because that verse or bridge or whatever it was somehow spawned an urban legend that TMBG were roadies for the ‘mats, which supposedly was even mentioned by a VJ on MTV, which is beyond hilarious.
Also pretty specific: the strangled scream of “I don’t wanna” before the final backing vocals only chorus that brings the song to its end.
I guess that some Replacements fans somewhere might have been offended by this song, but I loved it from the start — and apparently Paul Westerberg left a message on the Dial-A-Song hotline saying he did, as well — and I still love it to pieces.
“We’re The Replacements”
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