• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact

Medialoper

We're Not Who You Think We Are

i don't know

Certain Songs #1885: The Replacements – “I Don’t Know”

August 6, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Pleased to Meet Me
Year: 1987

. . .

One foot in the door, the other foot in the gutter

After the uncharacteristic sincerity of “Alex Chilton,” things were almost instantly back to normal with the raucous, rollicking “I Don’t Know,” which starts out with a fucked-up drum loop inserted by meddling producer Jim Dickinson over which was heard crazy laughter dominated by Tommy Stinson’s cackling. When the song proper started, it was another speedy rocker fueled by a series of shouted questions from Paul, each one answered the same way from Tommy and Chris.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1885: The Replacements – “I Don’t Know”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: i don't know, Pleased to Meet Me, Replacements

Certain Songs #28: The Beastie Boys – “I Don’t Know”

November 22, 2014 by Jim Connelly

image

Album: Hello Nasty
Year: 1998

On Hello Nasty, the Beastie Boys were somehow able to trade on their long-gone bad boy past while at the same time distancing themselves from it. To me, that alblum was the epitome of the “everything goes” musical joy that they always traded in, and I appreciated that while aging had mellowed them, it hadn’t mellowed their music.

So wouldn’t it figure that the most mellow song they have ever recorded would be my favorite? On “I Don’t Know,” Adam Yauch sang about how the more he knows, the less he’s sure of. Like the rest of us.

I mean, from:

;Torchin’ and crackin’ and rhymin’ and stealin’
Robbin’ and rapin’, bustin’ two in the ceilin’
I’m wheelin’, I’m dealin’, I’m drinkin’, not thinkin’
Never cower, never shower and I’m always stinkin’

To:
 

;I’m walking through time
Deluded as the next guy
Pretending and hoping to find
That distance peace of mind

in a little bit more than a decade? That’s what we call “growing up.”

Of course, a whole album of music like “I Don’t Know” would have been intolerable, but stuck in between “Body Moving” and the “Negotiation Limerick File,” it stuck out like a sore thumb. A beautiful, moving sore thumb.

I’d like to think that maybe Adam Yauch found that peace of mind.

“I Don’t Know”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: adam yauch, beastie boys, hello nasty, i don't know

Primary Sidebar

Lopy

Search

Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2629: Talking Heads – “What A Day That Was (Los Angeles 12-1983)”
  • Certain Songs #2628: Talking Heads – “Slippery People (Los Angeles 12-1983)”
  • Certain Songs #2627: Talking Heads – “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)”
  • Certain Songs #2626: Talking Heads – “Burning Down The House”
  • Certain Songs #2625: Talking Heads – “Crosseyed and Painless (Cherry Hill 11-08-1980)”

Copyright © 2023 · Medialoper