Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DXLVII--The Replacements: Talent Show

It's too late to turn back now...

My introduction to this week's tune came via the cassette tape (CDs were still considered too expensive to open for store use) of this week's album we had open for instore play in 1989 back in my Camelot Music days.  As is often the case with a Replacements song, it was love at first listen.  Oddly enough, this one comes back to me every few years and I play it again and again for weeks on end.  Last time was at the tail end of the pandemic, which means I'm just about due for another....

Thus far, I've written about two of the Replacements songs (first and second), an album, and a single by their lead singer Paul Westerberg.  As neither the band nor Westerberg has done much of anything since my last post covering them, the only thing left in my bio paragraph is to once again lament that the Replacements are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (though they were nominated for the class of 2014).  Come on people--get with it (as if the Hall of Fame committee gives a fuck what I think...)!

"Talent Show" was not released as a single from their 1989 LP, the rather secretively entitled Don't Tell a Soul.  The album peaked at #57 on the Billboard 200 and was the highest charting album of their career.

Fun Fact:  Don't Tell a Soul is the only Replacements album to yield a single that hit the Billboard charts--"I'll Be You" reached #51 on the Billboard Hot 100.

While doing my half-assed research, I came across a piece that claimed "Talent Show" was a dig at their recording label...and in all my years of writing Friday Night Jukebox posts I'm not sure I've ever read a song synopsis that missed the mark more than that one.  The song is what it is--an ode to bands just starting out (like most assuredly the Replacements) and the gigs they play to get their dreams off the ground. It captures the fear and the excitement and courage it takes to throw oneself on the stage and sing and play your hearts out in the hopes that the audience likes your art.  Featuring their trademark jangly guitars, another stunning vocal from Paul Westerberg (the Rock and Roll Gods graced his vocal cords with the nectar necessary to sing balls out rock and roll), and some explosive drumming, the song is a joyous ride through a band's beginning.  I honestly cannot do this song justice--just another wonderful tribute to the wonders of making music.

Lyric Sheet:  "Well, we got our guitars and we got thumb picks/And we go on after some lip-synch chicks/We're feelin' good from the pills we took/Oh, baby, don't gimme that look..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DXIX--The Replacements: Merry Go Round

Hey, it was Christmas week....

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

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCLXXXIII--The Replacements: Let It Be (Album)

Well, another year has passed and this week we'll have our yearly installment of "It's My Birthday and I'll Feature an Album If I Want to...."  This year I'll be fawning over the Replacements' seminal album Let It Be.

I've already wrote a post about the Replacements, and since these album posts tend to stretch out a ways, I'll skip the band history.  The one note I'd like to make is what a surprise this album was--it had been released for twenty years before I finally got around to listening to it, and the fact that I'd make it the fifth album I'd write about for Friday Night Jukebox says volumes about how much the album means to me.  Over the years the Replacements have become one of my all-time favorite bands, and it will always surprise me that they never got as big as REM or U2, a couple of bands who debuted around the same time.  And it's a shame they aren't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--maybe some day they'll surprise me and put both the Replacements and the Spinners in the same year....

And away we go!

I Will Dare--As noted above, I've already written about this one.  The best song on the album and quite likely the best song the Replacements ever did.  Right up there with "Thunder Road" for all-time great album opening songs.  A masterpiece.  Favorite line:  "Ain't lost yet, so I gotta be the winner/Cigarettes and fingernails, a lousy dinner..."

Favorite Thing--A nice slice of power punk, reminiscent of songs from their early days.  No idea what the "favorite thing" is--a woman?  rock music?  something else?  The ending lyric is ambiguous as well.  No matter--not a great song but far from being a bad one, either.  Favorite line:  "Yeah, I think, I hear, I know/Rock don't give a shit, you know..."

We're Comin' Out--Like the previous song, harkens back to the band's punk roots.  But also a harbinger of songs to come--the band slows it down before the last stanza and lets you know they're thinking big on this album.  One of my early favorites from the album.  Favorite line:  "One more chance to get it all wrong/One more night to do it all wrong/One more warning..."

Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out--Not sure if a band member had a bad experience with a doctor or what, but in this time of a pandemic where health care providers are heroes this one makes the case that maybe there are a few who aren't quite as heroic as we'd like.  At any rate, more power punk.  Favorite line:  "Rip, rip, we're gonna rip 'em out now..."

Androgynous--To say this song was light years ahead of its time would be an understatement.  Featuring just a piano and Paul Westerberg's vocals, the song is an ode to a cross dressing man who falls in love with a cross dressing woman...and they live happily ever after.  Westerberg also makes the case that someday people will laugh at those who laugh at the LGBTQ community.  A stunning song for its time (1984).  Favorite line:  "And they love each other so/Androgynous/Closer than you know, love each other so/Androgynous..."

Black Diamond--A cover of a Kiss song, written by Paul Stanley.  I've never heard the original, so I don't know how true it is to its source.  A song with socioeconomic/political overtones, features impassioned vocals from Westerberg.  A nice nod to past heroes.  Favorite line:  "Out on the street for a living/You know it is only begun/Regardless a street or a country/They got you under their thumb..."

Unsatisfied--The band slows it down a little for this one and Westerberg carries the song with a heartfelt and subtly understated vocal.  There's a sense of despondence within the song, but at least for me, it's never a sense of hopelessness.  One of the better songs on the album.  Favorite line:  "And it goes so slowly on/Everything I've ever wanted/Tell me what's wrong..."

Seen Your Video--My second favorite song on the album.  Two and a half minutes of Bob Stinson showing off his guitar chops (plenty of fine jangly guitars in there, too), and then thirty seconds of Westerberg shouting a diatribe against MTV.  Plenty have noted that as the years went on the band did its share of videos that appeared on MTV, but every now and again you just have to say, "Fuck 'em if they can't take the joke."  Favorite (and only) line:  "Seen your video/The phony rock and roll/We don't want to know..."

Gary's Got a Boner--When I originally saw this song title, I thought it might be one of those songs included for comic effect.  It's anything but--if I had to guess it's about a sexual sadist (maybe serial killer?) who enjoys the violence much more than the sex.  While it's actually quite well written (not a comment on rape, but a portrait of a rapist), the subject matter is a bit much for me.  Not horrible, but not a favorite either.  Favorite line:  Nothing that deals with sexual violence could ever be a favorite of mine.

Sixteen Blue--And they follow that up with one of the most poignant songs ever written, a song about being sixteen and having urges that you don't understand, knowing what sex is without the slightest clue what it means, and telling folks you're fine when you're anything but.  Westerberg's vocals capture precisely the angst of being old enough to know but too young to partake (or able to find a partner willing to learn with you).  The band is definitely maturing with this one.  Favorite line:  "Your age is the hardest age/Everything drags and drags/You're looking funny/You ain't laughing are you?/Sixteen blue..."

Answering Machine--The Replacements close with another standout track, an ode to calling the one you love and getting an answering machine instead.  Have a hunch this one is also a tale of a band being on the road, and the loneliness and of what is lost despite the playing of music for a living and the adoring crowds.  A lovely way to close an album, and proof that the Replacements were a band to be reckoned with.  Favorite line:  "Big time's got its losers/Small town's got its vices/A handful of friends/One needs a match, one needs some ice..."

And that's it--enjoy 33 minutes of pure listening joy:

Fuck Donald Trump,

emaycee

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

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXV--Paul Westerberg: Dyslexic Heart

The only thing I remember about Singles, the movie from which this week's tune was introduced, is that at some point in the movie one of the main characters says "God bless you" to a woman he's pursuing after she sneezes and she falls in love with him straight thereafter.  Thanks to that scene, I spent years saying "God bless you" to any pretty woman within fifty feet of me...and nary a one of them ever fell head over heels for me....

Anyhoo...

Paul Westerberg is another in a long line of FNJ  heroes whom the whole world should know about but very few folks actually do.  Westerberg started his career as the lead singer/songwriter for alternative rock pioneers (and emaycee fave) and Minnesota natives The Replacements (more on them later this year), who despite drawing much acclaim from critics and a devoted if small following, never had much in the way of commercial success.  After 12 years and 7 albums the band members went their separate ways; Westerberg became a solo artist and other than the (small) bit of fame he received for this week's tune, pretty much continued riding the lack of commercial success train with the six LPs he released.  Still, he's been making music, recording and touring since 1979 and my guess is there's many a garage band in this world who'd trade places with Westerberg in a heartbeat.

Released in 1992 on, appropriately enough, the Singles: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, "Dyslexic Heart" showcases Westerberg's two best attributes:  Writing catchy as all hell pop songs that don't sound like pop songs, and singing catchy as all hell pop songs without sounding like a catchy as all hell pop singer.  And unlike many alternative bands, Westerberg has never been overly introspective:  "Dyslexic Heart," like many of his tunes, wears its heart on its sleeve as Westerberg weaves his tale of a man trying to read not only his desired woman's intentions, but his own heart's intentions as well.  There's plenty to like from the lightly strummed acoustic guitar beginning to the driving electric guitar to the rat-a-tat drumming to the liberally spread around "na na nas" (which are always great for singing along) and finally to the start/stop cadence that Westerberg utilizes to great effect.  In the end, you have a pop gem from a movie that will live on long after the film has been forgotten (well, at least to music dorks like me...).

Liner notes:  "Do I date you? Do I hate you?/Do I got a dyslexic heart?"

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee