My introduction to this (last?) week's tune was its video on MTV--it was one of those songs you hear once and fall in love with immediately. I have a vague remembrance of playing its album in my old 10' x 10' store (slight size exaggeration--but not by much) in Fairview Heights, Illinois, but I don't remember much of it from back then. Sometime in this century's teens I played the CD regularly in my car while driving to and from Southfield, Michigan. Turned out it was a hell of an album, too.
I've written about a Replacements song (Vol. CL), album (Vol. CCLXXXIII), and a solo single by Paul Westerberg (Vol. CXV), and as my loyal readers (all three of you) know, they are one of my all-time favorite bands. Alas, there have been no more reunions in the intervening years, and aside from some small-time releases and touring by Westerberg, nothing much has changed since my last post. Oddly, I did notice that I haven't posted a link to their discography (it's here) for anyone who would also like to discover such musical greatness. Notably, though, it still saddens me that they're still not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"Merry Go Round" was the first single from their 1990 release, the rather swayingly entitled All Shook Down. While the single did not chart on the Big One, it did hit #1 (with a bullet?) on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and stayed there for four weeks. The album rose to #69 on the Billboard 200.
Fun Fact: The song is written about Westerberg's relationship with his younger sister Mary ("Merry"--play on words, clever, clever), who would go on to become a DJ in Minneapolis for many years.
I've been thinking how I would ever be able to do this week's song justice in a simple post, and the plain truth is that I can't. But what I can do is tell you how much I love Westerberg's vocals (many years later I noticed how he accentuated the hard C's in the song and I don't know if it's a speech tic or if it was planned but I love it), how stunning the lyrics are, how catchy the song is, and how the Replacements always manage to absolutely nail their jangly fucking guitars. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention how the guitars mimic a heart pounding whenever her little heart pounding is sang and how it always makes me smile. In the end, it's a beautiful song of a brother's appreciation (love?) for a sister who isn't quite like everyone else. In a word, wondrous.
Lyric Sheet: "You wake to another day and find/The wind's blowing out of key with your sky/Only you can see/And the rain dancing in the night/Everybody stands around in delight..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
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