Replacements - Let It Be POLL

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn306/Floridian_20/ReplacementsLetItBe.jpg

i think we've done this before, but i'll say sixteen blue

Androgynous

or Unsatisfied. This is difficult.

yeah kid it's a-really hip: replacements LET IT BE poll

I listened to the first four songs off this at the gym this week because of this thread, and let me tell you it made me run like hell on that treadmill! I can't figure out if I should choose "Answering Machine" for purely sentimental reasons or if I should try to be more objective. Thank goodness I've still got time before the poll ends.

― Bimble, Friday, January 11, 2008 8:21 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Also another thing I'll always remember is the splotch of white paint that was on the sleeve of my vinyl copy somewhere around Tommy Stinson's legs in that photo. One of those charming imperfections of pressing you would never see now. (and no, no jokes about him cumming please) Anyone else have a botched pressing of the sleeve of this?

― Bimble, Friday, January 11, 2008 8:26 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

;-)

yeah this has been done but iirc "seen your video" was robbed, i'll rep for it this time and i think sarge has my back

Androgynous, but Unsatisfied is great too.

^^ #'s 3 and 2, respectively

this album finally opened up to me this weekend after like a year of *appreciating* it but not really loving it. now i love it. and i vote "we're coming out"

Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out

Answering Machine

"seen your video" def

"Androgynous" seems to get better year after year for me, really a pretty profound and empathetic song for a straight dude to write about sexual ambiguity/confusion

"i will dare" simply because it's such a great album opener. there's something about it that, when i hear it, makes me excited to be listening to the record.

"favorite thing" last time, "favorite thing" still

Answering Machine, because after all these years I still don't have a fucking clue how to play it on geetar. I've figured out US Maple songs more easily.

i think it's an actual answering machine in the background, could be wrong

Favorite Thing 4EVA!!!!!!

favorite thing" last time, "favorite thing" still

― would you ask tom petty that? (tipsy mothra), Monday, June 8, 2009 3:15 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

could easily have voted androgynous or black diamond or answering machine or unsatisfied or favorite thing tbh i'm just feelin we're comin out most right right now

"i think it's an actual answering machine in the background, could be wrong"

That voice at the end -- "If you'd like to make a call....", etc., does that still come on? I haven't had a land line in a few years and I can't remember. That woman must have the most listened to voice in U.S. history.

yeah i get her for busy lines and automated voicemails

nobody likes "Gary's Got a Boner." Will one of the contrarians on here just vote for it already?

i like "gary's got a boner". but it's one of their bar-band rock numbers, which work fine as album cuts, they just don't jump out as anybody's favorite song. (see also "dose of thunder," "shooting dirty pool," etc.)

Answering Machine, because after all these years I still don't have a fucking clue how to play it on geetar.

rumor has it Open A with a capo on fret 2 will be a good place to start

i have voted 'unsatisfied' in both of these polls. has there ever been a TIM poll?

i will dare

Sixteen Blue

could easily have voted androgynous or black diamond or answering machine or unsatisfied or favorite thing tbh i'm just feelin we're comin out most right right now

^^^^rEAL tALK.

on the previous poll i voted i will dare
this time ill go with androgynous.

My prediction: Current vacillation will lead to me listening to this album, like, ten times in the next few days, going from one option to another as if my vote really matters, then ultimately forgetting to vote at all and yet feeling OK about whatever wins.

Voting once again for "Favorite Thing."

Now we're talking! (never mind fuckin' Tim).

There really isn't a bad track on this record. I'm going with "We're Comin' Out."

Eh, Tim's not so bad song-wise. It's the production that sucks.

favorite thing

Kidding about the bad track thing? "Gary's Got A Boner" is one of the most cringe-worthy songs I've heard in my life.

i can think of a lot cringier songs from Tim or Don't Tell a Soul

Kidding about the bad track thing? "Gary's Got A Boner" is one of the most cringe-worthy songs I've heard in my life.

....yet still better than most of Tim.

People, people, dudes. Your sense of propriety is completely gayass! Gary's Got A Boner is an high quality rockin jam.

for real, plus duh it sounds like "cat scratch fever"

cringe-worthy sort of implies that it's done in earnest; but this is a joke song, top to bottom.

no--it's a metaphorical exploration into the journey of a young man's wrenching, yearning struggle with priapism

Answering Machine v. Unsatisfied. Thinkin' the latter.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Androgynous is one of the best examples ever recorded of the "less is more" minimalism style in pop/rock.

nah its just a song where they played piano

maybe, but it's not the initial meaning but the result that counts.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

who besides a sarge voted for seen you video??

hey, i will dare did better in this poll. maybe by the third poll it will win!

I think I voted for Seen Your Video since I voted for Favorite Thing in the first poll. I used to use SYV as background music when I did a halftime scoreboard show on the radio for the local D-I basketball team.

previous poll results:
unsatisfied 17
favorite thing 16
i will dare 14
answering machine 14
androgynous 7
sixteen blue 6
tommy gets his tonsils out 5
we're coming out 5
black diamond 5
gary's got a boner 3
seen your video 1

the rolling stones would be happy

Someone should add them together.

Well, my profession is accounting so...

Unsatisfied 35
I Will Dare 29
Favourite Thing 28
Answering Machine 24
Androgynous 14
Sixteen Blue 10
We're Coming Out 8
Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out 6
Black Diamond 6
Gary's Got A Boner 4
Seen Your Video 4

Every time I get to Androgynous in the list as I go down, I think "wait! that song got short shrift" and then I look at the ones before it and think "oh yeah, that's why" LOL

No way to be androgynous and not unsatisfied.

Well, in this context.

Really incredible album if something as lovely as "Sixteen Blue" is the sixth-best song

Tommy told a fan during a meet & greet earlier this summer that a 4 LP / 3 CD deluxe edition was coming, and the band's various websites - social media, YouTube page, etc. - has just confirmed it.

*have just confirmed it

Well, my profession is accounting so...

Unsatisfied 35
I Will Dare 29
Favourite Thing 28
Answering Machine 24

(Results of two polls combined) I'd fiddle with the order a bit there--2/1/4/3--but I would say that is exactly the right top four, with the right amount of distance from everything else. Also think three of the bottom four are right, but I do like last-place finisher "Seen Your Video."

I don't begrudge its existence, and like seeing the band make some money whenever they can, but I can't imagine buying an expanded version of an album that is 1/3 brilliant and contains waste as is. Mind you, being the Replacements, maybe there's some tossed-off brilliance hiding away in there.

This is probably a singular point of view, but I'd rank the CD bonus track "Perfectly Lethal" as second-best track if it had been on the LP.

...which is not to say there's likely a lot of EXTRA extra content at that level of quality.

Never heard that. I do love the non-album track "Pool and Dive" on a compilation I have.

> contains waste as is.

Unlike, say, the Beatles Let it Be, the waste tracks are 100% necessary. The butt-dumb songs make the subtle songs subtle rather than striving. This record got ecological niches.

I know what you're saying, and the album's of a piece, yes. I still think there's two or three lousy songs, and if you replaced them with good ones, "I Will Dare" wouldn't be any less brilliant.

It's not like there isn't a surfeit of sloppiness and crudity even on the "subtle" songs, they don't need "Gary's Got a Boner" for contrast. I was kind of shocked to listen to their debut many years after hearing this one and find that they sounded a lot more together as a hardcore band. I mean, I'm not the typical fan, because I feel like their music could have been better with more "striving" and less embarrassment about writing good songs that are played decently and produced acceptably. Their biography notwithstanding.

Gary's Got a Boner is a great song

Two screwing-around songs I love: Neil Young's "Are You Ready for the Country" and the Beatles' "Rocky Racoon. One I consider genius-level: "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," which many people despise. Reaction to these songs is maybe even more subjective than most music.

See, I would probably change the radio station if "Heart of Gold" or "Old Man" came on, but never for "Are You Ready for the Country". I never even thought of it as filler or throwaway, other than a few seconds of false start; I guess I'd reserve that for "Homegrown" or "We Don't Smoke It No More".

I love it, but to me it does sound like it was made up on the spot.

Gary's Got a Boner is a great song

100,000 percent truth

https://store.rhino.com/en/rhino-store/artists/the-replacements/let-it-be-deluxe-edition-3cd/603497811670.html

LET IT BE by The Replacements—Paul Westerberg, Bob Stinson, Tommy Stinson, and Chris Mars - originally released by highly revered indie label Twin/Tone Records, is widely hailed as one of the greatest albums of the 1980s and a cornerstone of indie rock.

The DELUXE EDITION gathers a wide range of unreleased material from the LET IT BE sessions, including alternate versions of “Gary’s Got A Boner” and “Favorite Thing,” as well as previously unreleased outtakes “Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive” and “Street Girl.” The alternate version of “Androgynous” out today features a different vocal take and the full piano intro, restored for the first time. All five bonus tracks from 2008’s LET IT BE (EXPANDED EDITION) are included here, newly remastered for this set.

The collection also includes GOODNIGHT! GO HOME!, an unreleased 28-song performance recorded in August 1984 at the Cubby Bear in Chicago. Sourced from an audience tape and newly remastered, it finds the Minneapolis quartet charging through material from the not-yet-released album (“I Will Dare” and “Unsatisfied”), early favorites (“Color Me Impressed” and “Takin’ A Ride”), and characteristically offbeat covers “Help Me Rhonda/Little G.T.O.” (originally done by The Beach Boys/Ronny & The Daytonas) and “Can’t Get Enough” (Bad Company).

Excited for this but bummed that they changed the format. The past boxes were lovely.

Yeah, the album-sized CD boxes of the recent Replacements and Wilco reissues are things of beauty.

I get it, but I don't mind something that takes up less space and has a lower price point.

including alternate versions of “Gary’s Got A Boner”

Wow, based on this thread, I bet a lot of Replacement fans are getting a

lot of excitement from this news.

Listening to that alternate version of "Androgynous" and I realize the words are obviously indebted to "Out of the Wardrobe" by the Kinks, even to the extent of the male (?) character being named Dick. I wonder to what extent either song fits with 2025 mores around gender identification.

Guessing "Out of the Wardrobe" holds up a smidge better than "Black Messiah."

I get it, but I don't mind something that takes up less space and has a lower price point.

I was initially disappointed when I saw the photo, but as soon as I saw the list price, I couldn't complain. Remember when everyone here complained how expensive the Tim box set was?

The other upshot is they also have an all-vinyl edition, something they didn't do for the other sets, so you don't have to buy two formats in one package, you can get the one you want and that's it. I was fine with CD's, but having to buy an additional vinyl disc with no additional music likely inflated the cost by a large margin.

To be clear, I hate packages that mix cd’s and vinyl, wtf is the point of that? I just like having pretty things lined up nicely on the shelf together.

Oh yeah, same here. Maybe it's OCD, but visually it annoys me how the deluxe edition of my favorite album will be sitting on a small shelf in a tiny digipak wallet while Dead Man's Pop gets to sit all high and mighty next to a row of lavish box sets.

lol

Listening to that alternate version of "Androgynous" and I realize the words are obviously indebted to "Out of the Wardrobe" by the Kinks, even to the extent of the male (?) character being named Dick. I wonder to what extent either song fits with 2025 mores around gender identification.

every time i hear sixteen blue, my favourite song of this album and my favourite Replacements song, it's striking to me that a band so damaged and dysfunctional and a songwriter so given to chaos and casual cruelty in his private life at that time could write a song that is so sensitive and generous to teens experiencing gender confusion. destroys me every time, and still feels way ahead of its time in terms of sophistication around its topic.

That was one of Westerberg's greatest gifts, or perhaps he set himself up for such striking contrasts by setting the bar so low, lol, via drunkenness or self deprecation or whatever. He could "sell" a song like "Sixteen Blue" or "Androgynous" (or "Within Your Reach" etc.) because he also delivered "Gary's Got a Boner."

The other day I was humming "Dyslexic Heart" in the shower. It's a pretty cheesy song, but it's the kind of a clever lyrical conceit that he excels at. "Well, my heart could use some glasses/I try and comprehend you but I got a dyslexic heart."

Fun anecdote, as mentioned in passing on a different thread, I just dropped my daughter off at a pretty preppy college. Through my own fault I misplaced my set of clean clothes for the day, so had to move her in while wearing a Replacements shirt I pulled out of my (not too dirty) pile. All the other dads looked like they golf, and then there was me. But at one point I was waiting with my kid by the mailroom, and the middle aged/my aged guy grabbing the packages from the back got my attention and asked what my shirt said. I'm used to talking to normies, so told him, "oh, it's a band called the Replacements." And he lights up and says, "That's what I thought! They were my favorite band, I must have seen them 18 times. Then he lowers his voice and leans to me and whispers "no one here has any idea who they are."

Per Jason Jones at Rhino, looks like the change in format was due to the band listening to their fans:

The band members and their management have heard complaints from fans for years about the combo LP/CD format and took this project as the opportunity to make a change. It's not about money (believe me) as we went with upgraded LP packaging in order to keep as closely in line as we can with the feel and look of the past combo LP/CD releases. Of course there will be differences, but it's still heads and shoulders above what most bands from their era are receiving from the reissue world (if they are even being reissued at all).

Minutemen say "Ouch!"

today, Jon Pareles describes Westerberg's attitude in "Androgynous" as "neighborly" and "live and let live" re: "drag queens and transgender people." and I've had a friend say the same, that westerberg is supportive. Yet it is transparently so that the song laments androgyny in the 80s. "Something meets boy, something meets girl" ; "he might be a father, but he sure ain't no dad" ; I'm sure Westerberg wouldn't write a song with this sentiment now, but in 1984, he was not into foo foos on MTV like Boy George or Marilyn…what am I missing?

i assumed the he might be a father, but he sure ain't no dad was about some asshole dad of the androgynous subject

Don't get him wrong/don't get him mad sounds like equivocating on the parents part

agree
also thought it was "sure ain't a dad"
relatable!

I related most to Sixteen Blue though

Yeah, father/dad line always stuck me as a brilliant description of an authoritarian father who would say mean things couched with "don't get me wrong..." and would fly off the handle when he gets angry. From my experience, that type of behavior doesn't fit the warmth & love of being called a "dad", the cold & formal "father" fits much better. Also, the "something" lines don't strike me as anti-trans in context either. The song is very much of it's time in that it's about androgyny and not gender transition. It's about not knowing and not caring about someone else's gender. "Something" is a placeholder for unknown, not inhuman in that context. Plus the next line is "they both are the same, they're overjoyed in this world," which is overwhelmingly positive.

It's kind of interesting that Joan Jett plays "Androgynous" in her sets to this day

xp Westerberg revisited "father/dad" territory vis a vis "house/home" in "Here Comes a Regular":

I used to live at home, now I stay at the house

Also Kurt Cobain pretty clearly lifts it for serve the servants: I tried hard to have a father / but instead I had a dad.

Thats kinda backwards tho

The song is very much of it's time in that it's about androgyny and not gender transition. It's about not knowing and not caring about someone else's gender. "Something" is a placeholder for unknown, not inhuman in that context. Plus the next line is "they both are the same, they're overjoyed in this world," which is overwhelmingly positive.

yes yes all of this. androgynous is a relentlessly upbeat, positive song (by a band with a somewhat foo foo bass player and a guitarist who liked to cross dress)! same hair, revolution! tomorrow who's gonna fuss! they love each other so!

i don't doubt that someone trying to write the same song in 2025 might approach it differently than westerberg did in 1984, and because social media exists, 10 million people (or maybe more like 100 people, this is the replacements we're talking about after all) would probably fuss about it. people were mean and stupid then, people are mean and stupid in totally different ways now.

The track gets a lot of power mixing the positive lyrics with a weary arrangement. It moves it from anthemic to a bluesy put-upon fatigue. Why wont they just let us be? Which is why "We'll Inherit the Earth" doesn't work for me - the triumphant riffage clobbers the fatigued lyrics.

I get a little uncomfortable about holding these handful of old songs (Walk on the Wildside, Lola two other common ones that get brought up) to today's standards, no one -- if anyone is being honest -- was as aware or using the exact right ways of talking about these things when those songs were released, but I guess I try to look at the intent, and in all these cases I think the songs have a generous outlook, whatever problematic aspects there might be in hindsight

First time I heard "Androgynous," it conjured up the image of Marlene Dietrich doing her famous cabaret act.

The sandblocks (?) that immediately come in and stay until the very end sounded like the surface noise I was hearing on transfers of old 78's - I was just getting into music from the '20s, '30s and '40s at the time - and something about the tune and easygoing pace made it seem ideal for Dietrich to sing, where she could gently croon it while wandering about the tables in the club. Combined with the lyrics of the song and a visible line to Dietrich's groundbreaking image dissolving gender boundaries within popular mainstream entertainment, I always thought it would be a brilliant anachronism if, say, a 1930s period piece had a German language pseudo-Dietrich cover of this song emanating from an old 78.

"Und sie lieben sich so...androgynie...." [rumble, rumble, rumble]

Huh I never heard Androgynous as any other than affectionate toward its Dick and Jane. The “he might be a father but he sure ain’t a dad” scans to me as not wanting identity to be defined by biology.

The sandblocks (?)

created by the band "from chunks of wood found in Blackberry Way's basement," according to trouble boys. my favorite thing about that recording.

yeah I think you're mishearing those lyrics veronica, or at the very least we hear them very differently

today, Jon Pareles describes Westerberg's attitude in "Androgynous" as "neighborly" and "live and let live" re: "drag queens and transgender people." and I've had a friend say the same, that westerberg is supportive. Yet it is transparently so that the song laments androgyny in the 80s. "Something meets boy, something meets girl" ; "he might be a father, but he sure ain't no dad" ; I'm sure Westerberg wouldn't write a song with this sentiment now, but in 1984, he was not into foo foos on MTV like Boy George or Marilyn…what am I missing?

― veronica moser, Monday, August 25, 2025 6:56 AM (yesterday)

There's pics of the band often dressed in women's nightgowns, skirts, dresses around the time of Let It Be, for example this photo of Bob & Paul live in Chicago 10/12/84 that's included in the reissue:

https://www.instagram.com/gailwithacamera/p/DNyC8Af4nVF/

I don't think that Paul nor the band was lamenting androgyny at all... Paul listened to a lot of NY Dolls, Bowie & Lou Reed and maybe also that crosstown wunderkind from the north side of Minneapolis who was the same age as he and Bob.

This week, Rhino delivers a “Let It Be” box set that beefs up the original record with rarities, alternative versions of released songs and a typically craggy gig from Chicago’s Cubby Bear club. (There’s also an excellent essay from D.C.’s writer/singer Elizabeth Nelson.)

Because it’s the Replacements, the publicity rollout of “Let It Be” is, er, slightly unconventional. Westerberg, at 65, is “retired,” according to his representative, and not doing interviews. (I did, truth be told, attempt an end around by mailing the serious baseball fan a personal letter and signed Topps card of 1970s Twins catcher Butch Wynegar; Westerberg never replied.) Bob Stinson died in 1995, age 35, after years of drug abuse. Mars, 64, and Tommy Stinson, 59, did agree to talk about “Let It Be,” though they hadn’t heard the set yet, and Stinson said he wasn’t likely to listen to it.
“I kind of lived it, you know, a hundred years ago,” he said by phone from Montreal, where he’s recording a new album.

From a Washington Post article

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2025/11/21/replacements-band-let-it-be/

"greasy-haired, slacker king of the Winona Ryder set"? jfc, with stupid lines like this still being floated, it's small wonder PW has made himself unavailable for interviews

I can't read the article but is he confusing Westerberg with Dave Pirner?

Wasn't the high school in Heathers named Westerberg?

In Trouble Boys, it's mentioned by Paul that he <almost> got involved with Winona around '89-'90, and they're still friends who joke about how they probably should have done it because people were shipping them anyway.

I dunno I guess I think of Pirner when I think of greasy, he's exceptionally greasy looking

She was a huge fan! It was not the other way around.

I remember being in my backyard reading a magazine in a hammock and reading that she was a huge fan and I was too. I noted I had something in common w her. Probably age 14-15.

That’s def a terrible sentence tho for sure

Given that Westerberg was 30 in '89 and Ryder was 18, and also given Westerberg being Westerberg, it's probably best for all involved that they didn't get all involved.

1000000% and it’s depressing to think he would even talk about it.

He was my dreamy imaginary boyfriend too, I get it. But it’s best kept in the realm of the imagination.

It sounds like it was

The party is over

So the box set has 2 demos of "Answering Machine" plus the current mix of the album version. A bunch of live stuff, mostly from a Cubby Bear gig, but also some from elsewhere.

"Perfectly Lethal" on there too iirc. And "Temptation Eyes," along with some other stuff from singles/EPs.

Such as "Heartbeat, It's a Lovebeat."

"20th Century Boy" and "Hey Good Lookin'"

Maybe this stuff was already on some previous reissue.

Yes, Let It Be (Expanded)

Since 2008.

Anyway there's no way this is gonna be as revelatory as DEAD MAN'S POP or the TIM remix.

Still, dutifully listen from the beginning until I get to the live stuff

Alternative version of "Sixteen Blue" is nice!

Outro guitar seems the same but other stuff is different.

There was a period after I read TROUBLE BOYS when I couldn't stand to listen to them.

Okay, the alternate versions and mixes winning me over.

On to the live material! Bob is still in the band so I am excited.

https://www.gq.com/story/when-the-replacements-courage-was-at-its-peak

^Just found this, which is presumably similar to what's in the physical package

Amazed I finished reading that before I finished listening

But it was well worth it

Beach Boys cover!

The bass player, the one with the Rod Stewart hair, is rubbing his eyes sleepily. Why is he tired? We can only conjecture, but it may have something to do with playing a late-night gig and then hustling off to class the following morning.

I always thought the Let It Be cover captured Tommy picking his nose!

You can pick your Rickenbacker...

I missed Elizabeth Nelson, journalist and Paranoid Style musician talking about Let it Be yesterday afternoon at a dc club with Jim Spellman who was in dc band Velocity Girl

Nelson wrote the liner notes for the box

Right

And that article is excerpted or adapted from those notes.

I've got to admit, sometimes I find Nelson a little too purple, or at least too Romantic, but I suppose it suits the Soul of Rock and Roll subject.

Anyway, in her piece:

Everything was on the table—Big Star and T. Rex and the Stones, sure, but also U2, Mott the Hoople, The Buzzcocks, Booker T., Eno, Ted Nugent, Elton John, and, obviously, KISS.

Eno?

If there is anything truly sad about The Replacements’ ample legacy, it’s the lack of recognition they receive as perhaps the preeminent working-class heroes operating between Phil Ochs and Public Enemy in terms of telling true and unglamorous stories about the working poor.

Public Enemy?

Had no idea Jessica Hopper was apparently friends with Bob, that's wild. She also observes in Nelson's piece:

The things that were happening on the coasts in 1985 were so indelibly, traditionally macho. Black Flag, Circle Jerks, the beginning of NYC hardcore. Let It Be functions in part as a critique of that failed masculinity. They’re saying, ‘If that’s what being a man is, I want to fail at it.’”

Which is true and not an original observation but intriguingly one that could be applied to a few different contemporaneous MN acts: the 'Mats (wore dresses or eye-liner, sung about insecurities), Husker Du (long-haired barefoot drummer, played poppy songs and pop covers, were mostly gay), but of course also Prince (who one could argue was actually so aggressively masculine/heterosexual he could get away with being feminine, not unlike the ascendant hair-metal gods of the West Coast). Something more than master tapes in the Mississippi, I guess.

Soul Asylum?

You know, I don't think I've ever listened to them!!

They ended up being viewed as a kind of cheesy band, I think, but back in the day they put on a great live show. Maybe they even have a recent album out.

I'd always heard they were a great live band (always winning Best Live Band polls and whatnot) but I just never got around to them. I think I know two songs from the hit album, I know Bob Mould produced an album and Steve Jordan (!?) produced an album, but if I ever bought one it was a cut-out cassette and made no impression. Dunno why. I never really listened to or got into Dinosaur Jr. or Buffalo Tom or Goo Goo Dolls, either.

Just came across a live album of theirs from 2004 that I never really listened to that I am about to check out.

Looking at these poll results is sort of crazy to me. Answering Machine is so clearly the best song on this album.

Anyway, the novel that I've been writing for the past year or so, and will probably continue writing for the next year, is titled "Sixteen Blue."

Wow, cool!

But this album has no real best song.

Although for me there is a worst, since I have never stopped resenting and disliking Peter Buck's contributions to "I Will Dare," pardon me if challops.

Agreed, shocking to me that people rate that one so high.

Also weird to me that people had crushes on Westerberg, when it's Tommy Stinson who is clearly the dreamboat of the group. Young Tommy was a total smokeshow imho

fwiw, I had no idea he was that young in some of the photographs of the young band— wasn't trying to be a creep. i always forget that Let it Be came out when he was like 17. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, it's nuts, isn't it? I always thought the same thing, sorta. The big hair, looked like a rock star, not a kid. And then you see some of the formative photos, like this one:

https://img.apmcdn.org/f15e0095d743de67a7f1a393444781ece0e032e9/uncropped/d399c2-20140909-the-replacements.jpg

yeah, totally wild.

If not totally wired.

DoCan't u see?

The outtakes are fun - I'm familiar with a bunch from the 2008 reissue and various bootlegs. The live show isn't great, is it? Sound quality fairly muffled. Feels like a barrel being scraped, in that regard.

Really? I like the live show fine.

Any chance to hear Bob again tbh.

Especially on a live version of "Can't Hardly Wait."

Wasn't there a recent interview with Tommy where he essentially says there *are* no complete good/clean recordings of the Replacements, at least from the pre-Slim era?

Maybe. I don't know what people are expecting

This is certainly better than WtSHtF, although that of course is an essential document.

there *are* no complete good/clean recordings of the Replacements, at least from the pre-Slim era?

uhhhhhh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHBE7o_WWsI

i meannnnnnnnn

fwiw Tables, per Bob Mehr's book, everybody in the Twin Cities had crushes on underage Tommy too. He was popular with older women (i.e. 18 and 19 year olds).

xpost Yeah, that rips, dunno what Tommy was talking about. Still, that's only 20 minutes!

it's set 1 of 2, they do Eyes of the World second set

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaN79LN8d5c

Yeah, those Entry videos from right after Sorry, Ma are awesome

Oh, wait, so that was recorded by Twin Tone? I read the description and maybe this is what Tommy was talking about: "These songs are presented as they were recorded live... in set order and very much with the tuning that troubled the night."

xp

xpost Yeah, that rips, dunno what Tommy was talking about.

Maybe the classic musician's thing of being overly self-conscious about every single mistake when really no one else notices, or even if they do they don't really care.

That, uh, doesn't sound very Replacements tbh!

Superficially yeah. But Tommy was also in some other bands.

There's loose, and then there is out of tune. The latter is generally pretty hard to overlook.

https://www.gq.com/story/when-the-replacements-courage-was-at-its-peak

Nelson's liner note prose is a bit purple .

action painting NRBQ like guitars.

ok

The roaring, heartfelt second track, “Favorite Thing,” sounds like someone playing a 33
RPM recording of “Sweet Jane” sped up to 45.

The two songs don't really sound that similar to me at all also. . . from David Fricke's review of Pleased to Meet me this has always stuck out to me

Tracks like “I.O.U.” and “Shooting Dirty Pool” practically sound like Exile on Main Street at 78 rpm.

sorry that cut off weird

From the instantly unforgettable riff to the walking-around-the-prison-yard bassline to Chris Mars’ wonderfully idiosyncratic, action-painting, NRBQ-like drums to Peter Buck of R.E.M.’s chiming guest guitar, “I Will Dare” is a tonic, a sheer mood elevator: three minutes and 19 seconds of pharmaceutically pure serotonin injected into the listener’s ear. Love it as such but be aware too of what you are signing up for: a casual fling could become a lifetime commitment. Paul Westerberg, not so unlike Judy Garland, sings with the teasingly passionate vocal of the ironist acting in full sincerity. With its small raft of winking, killer jokes—“How young are you/How old am I?/Let’s count the rings/Around my eyes”—to the irresistible final buildup, which might just contain a light trace of regional polka, “I Will Dare” has the same punchline and come-on: “Meet me anyplace/or anywhere/or anytime/I don’t care/If you will dare/I will dare.” So, will you?

Here's the whole thing via archive

https://archive.ph/20251119181555/https://www.gq.com/story/when-the-replacements-courage-was-at-its-peak#selection-877.495-881.773

I appreciate how the Mehr book suggests an unspoken attraction b/w Tommy and Paul. Or maybe it was spoken, just not around us.

There's loose, and then there is out of tune. The latter is generally pretty hard to overlook.

this sounds incredibly dumb but as someone heavily exposed to i will dare since it dropped as a single, i never got the rings around my eyes as a tree joke until like in the prev 20 posts somewhere. so obv it’s a joek.

i don’t love the song but it’s v memorable.

lol

Westerberg is the absolute king of those corny lines straight through to “my heart could use some glasses”

for sure--his voice sells those lines, corny as they may be

Also the context of the rest of the song, as well as the band. It started to curdle into shtick at some point, which point that is will vary from one listener to another.

He can definitely straddle the Spinal Tap clever/stupid line. "Rings around my eyes" is good tho.

I don't think they're corny. Well, "Dyslexic Heart" is corny, but even that is good. I find his little witty metaphoric malapropisms, puns and whatnot - "shiftless when I’m idle," "playing makeup, wearing guitar," "God, what a mess, on the ladder of success/Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung," "dressin' sharp and feelin' dull" and so on - pretty clever and charming, even touching at times. But I'm a softy.

Love all of those examples you gave. But not, say, "dyslexic heart."

Which you mentioned first.

totally -- i always enjoyed his turns of phrase until one of them made me embarrassed for him (heart/glasses)
it's a catchy song but he's too deep in his bit for me at that point. whoever said everyone gets off the charm bus at different pojnts otm

i was a verbose teenager when i loved this band the most, so it makes sense

A big Replacements mystery to me is why I rarely (ever?) hear them on the radio here. XRT is practically made for them, given their bent and demographics, but they're nowhere near as common in the wild as I might expect. Maybe they are still more or less blacklisted? Are they ever heard out and about in Minneapolis, or is that too on the nose/counter to midwest modesty?

"Dyslexic Heart" is the only Westerberg single up to this point that I loathe.

it's partly the cutesyness and part the na na na na

i really like the other song from the singles soundtrack "waiting for somebody" and i even have a huge soft spot for "runaway wind" because it's real sentiment, not hot buttered treacly sentiment

"you don't blow like the breeze you were born to be" still makes me tear up

For a long time, I didn't actually own 14 Songs because I burned a copy of the album while adding those two Singles tracks as the opening numbers, beginning with "Dyslexic Heart." When I finally got the CD, I really missed those two tracks - cumulatively with "Knockin' on Mine" as track three, they got the album off to a roaring start, and at least for me, it made a huge difference.

I should say I hated the "na na na na" part when I first heard it, so I'm not sure what possessed me to use "Dyslexic Heart" as the opening track - frugality? completeness? - but eventually it just worked for me.

it's partly the cutesyness and part the na na na na

otm.

Yeah, I like "Waiting for Somebody" and a few of the faster songs on 14 Songs, but, boy, I don't like him as lead guitarist.

Huh, I think he's a great guitarist.

He plays an excellent lead on "Johnny's Gonna Die."

His part in "Alex Chilton" is good.

I thought most of PTMM was actually him (except Luther on “Shooting Dirty Pool”)?

"I Will Dare" belongs on

Songs with an all time verse that the chorus doesn't come close to delivering upon

I thought most of PTMM was actually him (except Luther on “Shooting Dirty Pool”)?

― birdistheword, Monday, November 24, 2025

It is.

The guitar playing on that album is kind of mostly ho-hum though

yeah by that point the leads hotter than a urinary infection were long gone

Speaking of sentiment, I love "First Glimmer" on 14 Songs — a great nostalgia-for-young-love song, and the leaves and jackets lyrics make it one of my favorite autumn ballads.

I love Dyslexic Heart, it’s the first Westerberg song I ever heard. I remember coming out of Singles at the Hampstead ABC, aged 14ish, desperate to get a copy of the “na na na na” song. And then the first Replacements CD reissues came out at the same time. And then inevitably ten years later I became a bad music journalist.

"Dyslexic Heart" sounds better than I remembered it

Perhaps the glut of reissued 'Mats material has softened my resistance to Paul's solo work.

I had never heard that song until today and I think your older opinion was the correct one lol

^^^ you've got a dyslexic taste

lol j/j

jajaja!

ChatGPT, is dyslexia related to shortsightedness

the mehr book claims that the overwhelming majority of guitar parts you hear on any Mats studio records is Paul: if it's very obviously super-ill, gonzo shit like the "Dose of Thunder" solo or the "We're Comin Out" solo, that's Bob, but the otherwise it's Paul; like the solo on "I'll buy" is Paul: the book also says that through most of his teen years, before Never mind the Bollocks, Paul was looking to be a lead guitarist, was very studious as such, and only resolved to be a songwriter relatively late… Bob's favorite player was steve Howe, although his crash and burn style doesn't suggest much familiarity with super chops dudes, except he does sound like Sonny Sharrock often; I think Mehr, or possibly Paul, makes the point in the book that those guys were punks in the sense of being legit degenerates and malcontents, and not at all in the storebought, housebroken sense of walking around in your Misfits t shirt and spiky haircut, clutching Maximum R&R.

Yeah, the story goes that Paul, walking home from work, was introduced to Bob by passing his house and hearing him playing Yes's "Roundabout."

Do tell

the mehr book claims that the overwhelming majority of guitar parts you hear on any Mats studio records is Paul

Already mentioned that the one that surprised me the most is that Paul played the second, superior solo on "Johnny's Gonna Die," be interested to know of any other such solo I always thought was Bob.

I think Mehr, or possibly Paul, makes the point in the book that those guys were punks in the sense of being legit degenerates and malcontents, and not at all in the storebought, housebroken sense of walking around in your Misfits t shirt and spiky haircut, clutching Maximum R&R.

― veronica moser, Wednesday, November 26, 2025 12:54 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would say, just generally, the Twin Cities punk scene was far less "year zero" than a lot of punk scenes, starting with the chopsy and still somewhat mid 60s Who like Suicide Commandos, and even Huskers didn't stay hardcore for long especially with Grant's love of 60s pop, covering the Byrde, Mats obviously very classic rock indebted

Reminds of a friend of mine in Austin trying to describe why the bands from San Antonio seem to have much more rock and roll energy at their disposal by saying that "it was the release after getting off work at the AM/PM Minimart."

Mats obviously very classic rock indebted

For sure, but key that they also grew up on AM radio in the pre-classic rock (as radio station genre) era. I'm 50, but friends of mine 10 years older than me have tales of road trips stuck listening to AM radio, hearing all sorts of shit. And then Paul also had his sister's record collection, and then later started buying his own punk stuff. Taken as a whole the formula is there: his lizard brain was totally familiar with bubblegum and whatnot from the radio, he got cooler stuff at home from his sister, and then on his own discovered the Sex Pistols. So basically, the Archies plus the Faces plus the Pistols as a foundation.

I think I Bought a Headache was about a Foghat concert?

I know seeing the Faces was big for Paul, but I think they were into all that butt rock, too (like Kiss), because that was what was available. Like, you get the music you get, not the music you want. I remember reading an interview with iirc Jon Langford of the Mekons about the number of times he saw Yes, because Yes was constantly touring around the UK and pre-punk was often the only live option. Def. Patterson Hood, he of the Replacements our-band-could-be-your-life epiphany, saw basically anything that came through Alabama until he learned about punk and other stuff. It's probably true for anyone of that era even slightly off the beaten path, right?

Feels like at the start one could have assumed that they were making fun of much of the cover material they performed but then eventually it became clear that this was not quite the case.

Somehow this reminds of an interview with Alice Cooper where he talks about liking the Bee Gees disco material but not being able to admit it to anyone.

and also jimi "i just like how this army jacket looks on me" hendrix

People thought he was making of Mister Bob Dylan, and his grandmother over there?

the story i heard was that people thought it was a protest against the war but he said he just liked the jacket? honestly i'm pretty sure i heard that in middle school and never looked into it. that and "music is my religion"

anyway this thread got me relistening to a bunch of replacements records and to 14 songs but i think for the time being i'm still pretty much a Pleased to Meet Me person and that's it

My favorite "pleased to meet" moment is still the end of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whIMah7Yi_4

They put a lot of heart in the Black Diamond cover. Also of course it's an objectively great song.

Covers are the only way to make Kiss songs listenable.

otm

thirded #pvmic

sallying fourth

i once did an acoustic cover of “Cold Gin.”