Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CL--The Replacements: I Will Dare

Every now and again a song comes along that literally within 30 seconds completely blows you away and you know that you are going to adore said song for literally the rest of your life.  Such was the case for me with this week's tune--though it was about twenty years after its release (and for the umpteenth time, thanks to my beautiful daughter for burning a copy of it for me).  I was a fan of the band prior to this song (especially their album Tim, and the singles "Merry Go Round" and "Talent Show'), but this song--and its complementing album--made me a fanatic.

The Replacements formed in 1979 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and would go on, much like the Ramones to punk rock, to be one of the forefathers of alternative music.  Unfortunately--again just like the Ramones--this would translate into very little commercial success and the band was disbanded by 1991 (though they'd have the obligatory--unless it's The Jam--reunion tour in 2012).  In some ways the band was its own worst enemy--the Replacements developed a reputation for being very inconsistent with their live shows and were known for playing (badly) while piss drunk, as well as performing shows where they'd play nothing but half-assed cover versions of songs by artists like the DeFranco Family and Bryan Adams (they so pissed off Saturday Night Live with a drunken shit show in 1986 that they were permanently banned from the show) .  In the end, they managed six albums, were considered a great live band when they were in the mood, and settled for being one of the most influential bands to come out of the 80's, though lead vocalist Paul Westerberg has had a modicum of success on his own (his "Dyslexic Heart" was featured on FNJ earlier this year).

Released in 1984 on their Let It Be album, "I Will Dare" was the first single from the album, and both album and single went absolutely nowhere commercially.  But like Vincent Van Gogh and his paintings, time was much kinder to the song and the album's legacy--"I Will Dare" is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll (though the band itself--is there no justice?--is not), and Let It Be is listed at #241 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and regularly makes top ten lists for albums of the 1980's.

Fun Fact:  For those wondering, the Replacements titling of the album as Let It Be is both an homage to the Beatles and a big fuck you to the music establishment.  The band seriously considered naming the follow up album Let It Bleed (classic Rolling Stones' album, for those not familiar), but for unknown reasons chose not to.  If nothing else, the Replacements had plenty of chutzpah....

Fans of Friday Night Jukebox (both of you) will recall that emaycee loves him some jangly guitars and "I Will Dare" is awash with them (courtesy of Peter Buck, who himself at the time was the lead guitarist of another up and coming band, REM).  Westerberg provides some cocky lyrics and a scowling vocal (he can scowl with the best of the scowlers--Jagger, Dylan, Joe Strummer, and Mr. Johnny Rotten).  He also plays Mandolin on the song.  The rest of the band powers the song's swagger, providing the drive and the bop til you drop catchiness of the single.  In the end, it's a coming of age wonder of the brashness and boldness of youth, as performed by a brash and bold band coming of age itself--three minutes and nineteen seconds of the best that rock and roll has to offer.

Lyric Sheet:  "How young are you/How old am I/Let's count the rings/Around my eye..."

Enjoy (and know that the whole album is most definitely worth your while):

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee