Medialoper

Certain Songs #1867: The Replacements – “Seen Your Video”

July 15, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Let It Be
Year: 1984

. . .

We don’t wanna know

April 19, 1985.

That was the first time I saw the Replacements. At the Star Palace in Fresno, CA, a 500-seat club that our college radio station, KFSR, managed to sell out for a band based 2000 miles away that only we played. There were a lot of other things going on that day: the same radio station was choosing a new station manager, and the band that would eventually become The Miss Alans — who just released their first album in nearly a quarter-century — was playing their first gig ever that night.

But the most important thing to me: I was getting to interview Paul Westerberg. Live, on the air, in the KFSR studio. Just him, answering my questions (with, of course, a bunch of people hanging around the station.)

Certain Songs #1866: The Replacements – “Unsatisfied”

July 14, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Let It Be
Year: 1984

. . .

I’m so, I’m so unsatisfied

“Unsatisfied” just might be the greatest song Paul Westerberg has ever written.

Shit, it might just be the greatest song anybody’s ever written. And yet, it’s not even my favorite song on Let It Be.

Certain Songs #1865: The Replacements – “Androgynous”

July 13, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Let It Be
Year: 1984

. . .

Mirror image / see no damage / see no evil at all

“Androgynous” just might be the greatest song Paul Westerberg has ever written.

Let it Be was the album where I started thinking in terms of Replacements albums having “major” songs and “minor” songs. In general, the “major” songs were usually — but not always — grand statements where he somehow universalized the personal. The minor songs were the jokey ones, the pisstakes, the ones delivered with a wink. Or, the major songs could be the ones I loved more.

Certain Songs #1864: The Replacements – “We’re Coming Out”

July 11, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Let it Be
Year: 1984

. . .

One more chance to get it half right

In December of 1984, a couple of months after Let it Be came out, the Village Voice published an instantly infamous cover story — pretty much forever known as “The R.J. Smith story” — which described the tumultuous chaos (or chaotic tumult) that surrounded the ‘Mats. And by “surrounded,” I, of course, mean “created by.”

Certain Songs #1863: The Replacements – “Favorite Thing”

July 10, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Let It Be
Year: 1984

. . .

Bar nothing!

Let it Be.

On its way to becoming quite possible the greatest rock ‘n’ roll album ever recorded, Let It Be did a tricky thing: after the opening bounce of “I Will Dare,” — cos you gotta lead with the hit single — it frontloaded nearly all of its punk songs, before giving away to the experiments, covers and ballads that dominated the rest of the record.

Certain Songs #1862: The Replacements – “I Will Dare”

July 9, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Let it Be
Year: 1984

. . .

How smart are you? How dumb am I?

“I Will Dare” might just be the greatest song Paul Westerberg has ever written.

And so, in the summer of 1984, this single just arrived at KFSR. A brand-new 12″ 45-RPM vinyl record from The Replacements, that scruffy sloppy garage band that had made one of my favorite records of the previous year. Maybe I knew that “I Will Dare” was coming, maybe I didn’t. Maybe I knew that some guy named “Pete Buck” played the guitar solo before I read it on the jacket, maybe I didn’t. I don’t remember any of that.

But what I do remember is knowing that it was a fucking classic before Paul Westerberg even opened his mouth.

Certain Songs #1861: The Replacements – “Treatment Bound”

July 8, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Hootenanny
Year: 1983

. . .

Label wants a hit, and we don’t give a shit

The self-mythologizing song has always been a rock ‘n’ roll staple, done by countless bands from The Who to the Clash to Too Much Joy to the Hold Steady, and with “Treatment Bound,” Paul Westerberg entered the Replacements into the canon, with a typically funny and unstinting look at exactly where the ‘mats were and where he thought they were going.

And it wasn’t pretty:

Certain Songs #1860: The Replacements – “Hayday”

July 7, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Hootenanny
Year: 1983

. . .

Going to the party that we weren’t invited

I would never claim that “Hayday” is one of Paul Westerberg’s greatest songs, however, I would claim that it’s easily my favorite song from Hootenanny, as pure of a blast of fucking punk rawk that the Replacements ever committed to vinyl.

Certain Songs #1859: The Replacements – “Lovelines”

July 6, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Hootenanny
Year: 1983

. . .

Oh yeah, oh yeah, Kitten!

The fast blues shuffle “Lookin For Ya” had been kicking around since even before Paul hooked with the rest of the ‘mats, but for whatever reasons, they didn’t record it for Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out The Trash, but did do a version of it for a compilation album in early 1982.

Certain Songs #1858: The Replacements – “Within Your Reach”

July 2, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Hootenanny
Year: 1983

. . .

I’ll die within your reach

Wait. What? Is that a goddamn drum machine? And a goofy phased guitar. And a fucking synthesizer? I thought the Replacements were, you know, a rock band. I mean, sometimes a drum machine is OK, like on that one song from New Order. I mean, what the fuck? No, seriously what the fuck?

The fuck, of course, was that Paul Westerberg had finally written a song that was too great for him to ignore and too difficult for his band to properly play. Especially his drummer, who had tagged along for what was originally a solo session and was too human to nail it.