My introduction to the Replacements came at the end of their career. And some time later still, in the racks at Virgin Megastore, in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, I discovered my favourite album of theirs, 1984’s Let It Be.
I’ll spare you a critical track by track review, and the references to New York Dolls, KISS and Ted Nugent. Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s review of the album on Allmusic pretty much says it all, saying it “feels accidental”, a “ragged mess”, and summing it up as “nothing if not a coming-of-age album”, he even lauds the songs which I used to consider disposable – Gary’s Got A Boner and Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out, because, as he argues, their very frivolousness right alongside the angst and pure poetic pain of Unsatisfied and Answering Machine is exactly what The Replacements were all about.
I’m here to tell you what this record means to me, why it’s in my personal list. A 33 minute album, just eleven short tracks, and four of them are some of my all-time favourite songs, with lyrics I will never forget: opening up with the irresistible feel-good hooks of I Will Dare (“ain’t lost yet, so I gotta be a winner / fingernails and cigarette’s a lousy dinner”, Westerberg declares), backed by Peter Buck’s jangly Rickenbacker guitar and Westerberg’s own mandolin accompaniment, the song evokes the “tentativeness of young love”, as Denise Sullivan wrote.
I’ll spare you a critical track by track review, and the references to New York Dolls, KISS and Ted Nugent. Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s review of the album on Allmusic pretty much says it all, saying it “feels accidental”, a “ragged mess”, and summing it up as “nothing if not a coming-of-age album”, he even lauds the songs which I used to consider disposable – Gary’s Got A Boner and Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out, because, as he argues, their very frivolousness right alongside the angst and pure poetic pain of Unsatisfied and Answering Machine is exactly what The Replacements were all about.
I’m here to tell you what this record means to me, why it’s in my personal list. A 33 minute album, just eleven short tracks, and four of them are some of my all-time favourite songs, with lyrics I will never forget: opening up with the irresistible feel-good hooks of I Will Dare (“ain’t lost yet, so I gotta be a winner / fingernails and cigarette’s a lousy dinner”, Westerberg declares), backed by Peter Buck’s jangly Rickenbacker guitar and Westerberg’s own mandolin accompaniment, the song evokes the “tentativeness of young love”, as Denise Sullivan wrote.
Meet me any place or any where or any time
Now I don’t care, meet me tonight
If you will dare, I will dare
It was a theme Westerberg would explore successfully later in two of my Top Ten Desert Island Tracks, Love Untold (from 1996’s Eventually CD) and First Glimmer (from 1993’s 14 Songs CD).
But my favourite tracks off the album are track five, Androgynous – Westerberg the drunk at piano, accompanied only by brushed drums. Growing up in the 1980’s, androgyny was a word I understood from a young age. I remember reading the track listing on the back of the CD, and seeing that song title, and just knowing I had to hear it.
With couplets like
But my favourite tracks off the album are track five, Androgynous – Westerberg the drunk at piano, accompanied only by brushed drums. Growing up in the 1980’s, androgyny was a word I understood from a young age. I remember reading the track listing on the back of the CD, and seeing that song title, and just knowing I had to hear it.
With couplets like
Don’t get him wrong and don’t get him mad
He might be a father, but he sure ain’t a dad
and
She don’t need advice that’ll centre her
She’s happy with the way she looks
She’s happy with her gender
The song is a delight to this day, and pops up on the “unconscious radio station” playlist in my mind more often than you could ever know.
But further on, track seven, Unsatisfied, opens with a twelve string acoustic guitar, then kicks into an all-out full-tilt impassioned howl; an aural catharsis if ever there was one. I remember reading an interview once where Westerberg talked about the song’s meaning, in the context of being strung-out on heroin – an addiction which would eventually lead to the 1995 death of guitarist Bob Stinson, and that intensity forever stayed in my mind. I might think I was unsatisfied, but really, what did I know about pain and hardship?
The album ends with probably my two favourite Replacements songs: Sixteen Blue, and Answering Machine.
But further on, track seven, Unsatisfied, opens with a twelve string acoustic guitar, then kicks into an all-out full-tilt impassioned howl; an aural catharsis if ever there was one. I remember reading an interview once where Westerberg talked about the song’s meaning, in the context of being strung-out on heroin – an addiction which would eventually lead to the 1995 death of guitarist Bob Stinson, and that intensity forever stayed in my mind. I might think I was unsatisfied, but really, what did I know about pain and hardship?
The album ends with probably my two favourite Replacements songs: Sixteen Blue, and Answering Machine.
Your age is the hardest age
Everything drags and drags
You’re looking funny
You ain’t laughing, are you?
Here is someone who really understands what it is to be young, and on the outside.
But the final track on the album is the one for me. It was another one of those tracks which, by name alone, I knew had to be interesting. Only a true poet could create something as compelling and enduring as this song, from something as mundane as an answering machine.
Westerberg sings over a heavily distorted and discordant electric guitar solo, and the sound creates an image of one man alone against the world, yearning, alienated, lonely and enraged, with no release.
But the final track on the album is the one for me. It was another one of those tracks which, by name alone, I knew had to be interesting. Only a true poet could create something as compelling and enduring as this song, from something as mundane as an answering machine.
Westerberg sings over a heavily distorted and discordant electric guitar solo, and the sound creates an image of one man alone against the world, yearning, alienated, lonely and enraged, with no release.
Try to breathe some life into a letter
Losing hope, we’ll never be together
My courage is at its peak
You know what I mean
How do say you’re OK to
An answering machine?
How do you say good night to
an answering machine
Big town’s got its losers
Small town’s got its vices
A handful of friends
One needs a match, one needs some ice
Call-waiting phone in another time zone
How do you say I miss you to
An answering machine?
How do say good night to
An answering machine?
Try to free a slave of ignorance
Try and teach a whore about romance (no chance)
How do you say I miss you to
An answering machine?
How do you say good night to
An answering machine?
How do you say I’m lonely to
An answering machine?
The message is very plain
Oh, I hate your answering machine
I hate your answering machine
I hate your answering machine...
Track listing:
1. I Will Dare
2. Favorite Thing
3. We’re Comin’ Out
4. Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out
5. Androgynous
6. Black Diamond
7. Unsatisfied
8. Seen Your Video
9. Gary’s Got a Boner
10. Sixteen Blue
11. Answering Machine
1. I Will Dare
2. Favorite Thing
3. We’re Comin’ Out
4. Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out
5. Androgynous
6. Black Diamond
7. Unsatisfied
8. Seen Your Video
9. Gary’s Got a Boner
10. Sixteen Blue
11. Answering Machine
