Someone Take the Wheel

For so much of his time with the Replacements, Paul Westerberg was not only the man largely in charge (being the songwriter, singer and frontman will do that to you), but a man on the move. He was so often in motion, always traversing the lines between hither and yon, plotting his next move. The question was, where was he heading? I'm not sure he ever really knew because the direction seemed to change so often.

Let's take a look.

First he was a thrash-happy scoundrel who seemed content to scream out rippers like "Something to Du" or "Kids Don't Follow" all the live long day. Until he wasn't, and he just had to try his hand at "If Only You Were Lonely" (funny how that song keeps coming up, and I swear it's not intentional) or "Within Your Reach." Only he didn't want to be a solo act back in those days; he wanted the band to evolve. So he marched them through the rowdy insouciance of Hootenanny with songs that took them off the funny pages (at least a bit) and into the realm of something deeper. That's where "Color Me Impressed" and "Willpower" came from, even while leaving the door open for the band's riotous side with songs like  "Lovelines" and "Treatment Bound."

But still he (and the band) moved on, and Let It Be brought Paul (and the band) on another stunning shift of direction into full-on confessional songwriting, and if anyone can find the equal in terms of that album's postpunk, heart-on-sleeve brilliance, well, please let me know. Because that would be impressive. Who could have foreseen the band that did "I Hate Music" and "Customer" cranking out splendor like "Unsatisfied" and "Answering Machine" and "Sixteen Blue" and "I Will Dare" less than three years later? While still blowing the doors off with "Favorite Thing" (quick side note: that is a PERFECT song) and "Gary's Got a Boner?" And again, they seemed to move to this point in large part due to Paul's inability to sit still. Fear and loathing aside, he just had to keep moving and, in his own way, evolving.

The journey and changes kept coming. First was a new label with Tim and a foray into outright anthemic classic rock (with punk leanings of course) with the one-two punch of "Bastards of Young" and "Left of the Dial." Followed by the momentous decision to kick Bob Stinson out of the band, led largely by Paul and obliquely chronicled (at least I hear it that way) in one of the most important songs Paul would ever write, "Swinging Party," which seemed a farewell to the Bob years and the advent of the next phase.

Next up, more change with the decision to go it as a straight-up trio and truly stretch their legs on the brilliant, genre-bending Pleased to Meet Me. Then, of course, the move to bring Slim Dunlap into the band for Don't Tell a Soul and to try (unsuccessfully) for that long elusive hit. Then the next course correction was Paul's decision to finally go it alone, after more band strife and the somewhat disastrous tour opening for Tom Petty in 1989. Or so we thought, Because then, of course, another turn! In the form of the final U-turn into putting out one final Replacements record. That's what led us to All Shook Down, a decade-long path that had more loops, deceptive turns and illusive twists than an Escher painting.

Sure, the band took this journey and made these directional changes with him, and you can draw a pretty clear line on the band's evolution of sound. But the unique path to get there was pretty palpable. And, naturally, someone had to be in charge. Or, if you will, someone had to take the wheel. So Paul did.

So look where that brings us! To track six of our look back at All Shook Down, the perfectly entitled "Someone Take The Wheel." Almost like we planned it that way. And also known as the moment Paul finally and most plainly announced he was publicly surrendering his leadership role in the Replacements.

 

"Someone take the wheel,
'Cause I don't know where we're goin'.
Anybody say what you feel,
Everybody's sad but nobody's showin'."

Do I know that for a fact that Paul is announcing this is the end for him? I do not. But the signs point right at it. Look at the words, starting with that chorus. It sure looks like, just after Paul's at-last plea to his fellow bandmates to please take the reins from him, the next line comes as a tacit admission: "'Cause I don't know where we're goin'." (Later in the song changing to the even more revealing, "'Cause I don't care where we're goin'.") After a decade of steering the band this way and that, towards success and then at the last second, time and again, diving into a ditch to avoid it, after getting rid of Bob, bringing in Slim and pretty much leaving Chris by the roadside, Paul's done. 10 years. Eight albums. That's it. Game over. Someone take the wheel.

So it's an important song in the Mats catalog, at least it should be, for that reason alone. And it feels like the Mats doing their thing. The shouted count-in from Tommy. The profanity and the nihilism ("I see they're fighting again in some fuckin' land..."). The peerless wordplay ("Anywhere you hang yourself is home"...holy shit is that good!). The noodly guitar solo that seems to balance between country jangle and wickety-wickety pop metal. The overall exhausted pace and the somewhat off-kilter bridge that doesn't seem to want to fit but still does. Plus a nice harmony turn towards the end from old Brit rocker Terry Reid. It's all there on "Someone Take the Wheel." The ingredients for a classic Mats ramble are all there.

Which is why I only wish I loved it more.

I mean, I like it. It's a decent song. And if the Goo Goo Dolls or Bush had done it it would be close to the very best of their catalog. But with the Mats, as Scott and I are learning as we do this exercise, you grade on a fairly steep curve. Especially when royalty like "I Will Dare" and "Can't Hardly Wait" and "I'll Be You," to name just a very few of the many perfect rockers they gave us, are always in the mix.

Here's my issue. This should sound like a Mats song for all the reasons I mentioned above, but it doesn't. And it doesn't really sound like a Paul Westerberg solo project. Instead, and maybe it's just me here, but it sounds like a band that is trying to sound like the Replacements. Which is why it just doesn't ever fully work for me.

The Mats never really tried to sound like anyone else. Sure, they on occasion could evoke Big Star or The Heartbreakers or the Dead Boys or even the New York Dolls, but the sound was still always theirs and theirs alone. But on "Someone Take the Wheel" it sounds like they are trying to ape the band they once were. The fact that only Paul and Tommy play on it could have something to do with it, and recapturing the feel the four of them once had with two non-Mats in the room, well, that ain't easy. So there's a level of involvement, a chemistry issue perhaps, that's just missing. And despite some truly fine moments within the song, the end product is just something a little less.

It's not to worry, because they'll get that...that something...back again before the record ends. A few times, actually. They will recapture exactly what it was that made them great, and as a result there will be more great songs coming, and very soon for that matter.

But on "Someone Take The Wheel," the song where Paul finally seems to stop moving and, perhaps, toss it in, the machinery is in place, but the results just don't quite add up. For the first time on All Shook Down we can finally see not only that the end is near, but perhaps why it's near.

Sadly Beautiful

It’s funny. For as much as the Replacements are treated as a beloved hard rock/postpunk band, with a preference from many of their longest-termed fans for the really hard stuff, the softer tunes were a part of their DNA for pretty much all of their career. The louder songs likely outnumber the quieter ones, but the latter were still always a part of who the Mats were. Thanks to Paul Westerberg’s ability as a master craftsman when it came to writing sad, longing ballads.

“If Only You Were Lonely” showed what Paul could do as a young balladeer just beginning dip a toe into those waters way back in 1981. But since then, every album since Hootenanny has had not only some quieter and more “serious” material, but also songs that are basically one-man shows for Paul. 

Think about it—“Within Your Reach,” “Androgynous,” “Here Comes a Regular,” “Skyway,” and “Rock-n-Roll Ghost” were all largely do-it-all-Paul ventures from Hootenanny through Don’t Tell a Soul. But they were done in the full spirit of who the Replacements were. Because those songs—as well as others—are pretty important in the overall Mats songbook and legacy. 

Why? Look. We love the band for who the band was—raw, sloppy, reckless, acidic, impassioned, ragged, heartfelt, needy, drawn and brutally honest. But those harder moments I don’t think have anywhere near the meaning they have if not counterset on occasion with the quieter songs. It's only when brought together that the true ethos of the Replacements can be seen and felt.

And it just makes the Mats that much more fascinating and effective. It’s why “If Only You Were Lonely” functioned so well as a b-side to a banger like “I’m In Trouble.” It’s why “Androgynous” flows so seamlessly after a goof-rocker like “Tommy Gets His Tonsils,” and why “Here Comes a Regular” is not just a perfect capper to Tim, but provides such a devastating contrast to the battery acid fury of “Little Mascara.” People can say plenty about the band’s fears, insecurities and self-destructive hubris. But you had to give it to them—they by and large knew how to lay out an album. And they knew the need to give both sides of the coin, the sour and the sweet, to these records.

And, of course,  they knew the value Paul brought with those softer moments. So that brings us to “Sadly Beautiful,” one of the most delicate and gorgeous songs Paul (or anyone else) has ever written. 

On an album where people expected Paul to be going it alone more often than not without Tommy, Slim or Chris, this track—the album’s fifth—is the first example of that happening. No, it won’t be the last. But I have always appreciated that he waited until track five, right after the fastest song on the album (“Bent Out of Shape”) to unveil “Sadly Beautiful.” 

“Sadly Beautiful” is so sparse it almost seems avant-garde, experimental, although this is no demo. This is a complete and thoroughly realized vision of a song. Paul and guest musician/avatar John Cale fill “Sadly Beautiful” with such a haunting level of melancholy that it is hard to not feel it pull at you. Three instruments—Paul’s weary voice, his dusty, desolate acoustic guitar and Cale’s mournful viola—are all you need to let “Sadly Beautiful” envelop you the way the best Mats’ songs of years’ past used to. 

“From the very first day you were born, 

To the very last time you waved and honked your horn, 

Had no chance at all to watch you grow 

Up so sadly, beautiful. 

“Baby needs a brand new pair of eyes, 

‘Cause the ones she’s got now see only goodbyes. 

Had no chance at all to let you know, 

So sadly, beautiful. 

So sadly, beautiful. 

“Well you got your father's hair, 

And you got your father's nose, 

But you got my soul. 

Sadly, beautiful. 

“From the very last time you waved and honked your horn, 

To a face that turned away pale and worn, 

Had no chance at all to let you know 

You left me sadly, beautiful.” 

This is heavier stuff, maybe, than most Mats fans were used to. The subject is a bit nebulous as always; it could be a parent saying goodbye to a child? Possibly a mother bidding farewell to a child going to live with his or her father? I suppose it could be a love song—perhaps Paul is singing to an ex, telling her while she was born with traits only her father could give her, the author's soul is something she earned. Could be. But it’s really not that important—the song is a lonely and almost funereal goodbye, and every corner of it works. 

Listen to the way Paul speaks the word “beautiful” just before Cale’s ethereal viola solo takes over. Or the ghostly way his voice barely can offer the stunning choice of words, “pale and worn.” Or Cale’s gentle bowed response every time Paul utters the word “sadly.” This is deeply personal, intimate, and the pathos and emotion behind every note and syllable invade the room as the song plays, like a spirit billowing through the drapes. 

As Scott and I have discussed so far, All Shook Down has more than a few high points and more than a few that, frankly, just don’t quite make it. “Sadly Beautiful” is one of the former, hitting towering heights while barely rising above a whisper. 

Being able to elevate above the ash and ruin with quieter moments was an ace the Mats always had up their sleeve (again, think “Skyway” or “Sixteen Blue” or “Achin’ to Be”), and for that reason, even though “Sadly Beautiful” is one of those examples of Paul going it mostly alone, it remains a Replacements song through and through. 

We’ll hear more on All Shook Down from Paul going it mostly alone, but we won’t hear it done any better. How could we when “Sadly Beautiful” offers it up so flawlessly?

Bent Out of Shape

When we were discussing the J.D. Salinger short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" back in high school, the teacher was talking about the way Salinger used color as metaphor throughout the story. I found this to be utterly specious in a "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" sort of way, even though I probably wouldn't encounter that actual phrase for years. Essentially, I thought the teacher was full of shit and that you could read almost anything you wanted into any piece of art.

I, of course, was almost certainly wrong, and Salinger was absolutely utilizing color in a coded manner, among many other literary techniques. What's more, in retrospect, for many reasons, that teacher was one of the best I would ever have. (Shoutout to Dan Marcus!)

[The collection of Salinger short stories was, of course, called Nine Stories and was, of course, the inspiration for the title of Paul Westerberg's first solo album, 14 Songs.]

Being full of shit is something the Replacements know all about. They dealt their entire lives with people who were full of shit, from when they were growing up, to their time in the band and, undoubtedly, afterward. What's more, if you read enough interviews, they themselves have admitted over the years to being full of shit in various ways and at various times. Pretending to be hardcore punks on the first two records, for instance, or pretending to be mainstream rockers in some of their final videos in ways that are transparently uncomfortable...and yet they're doing it. Kicking Bob Stinson out of the band for substance abuse, when the other members were very nearly as bad and, in fact, had encouraged his drinking in at least one famous and heartbreaking example. And obviously any time they had to deal with a record label they were likely getting yet another unpleasant experience of dealing with someone full of shit up to their eyebrows and beyond.

All of which is to say: prepare for what is an analysis likely chock full o' shit.

 "Bent Out of Shape" is, on one level, another good—perhaps even very good—but not great Replacements song. I'm a hardcore 'Mats fan, so when it comes to them, "good but not great" is generally more than good enough for me. But when looked at objectively, given just how transcendent they could be, "good but not great" can also translate into serious disappointment. When you're capable of winning the Super Bowl, merely making it to the conference championship just isn't enough.

And that's what this song seems to be. It's got some of the trademark Westerberg wordplay,  such as "you wanna be a dancer and I'm on my last leg." It's got some nice examples of the narrator clearly lying about how they feel, talking repeatedly about missing their face, about not feeling good, that their friends can all see it, and yet then claiming they've never felt better—meaning the narrator's either bipolar or lying, and my money's on the latter.

But there's another possibility. Not that the narrator's not lying, that seems obviously the case. It's that the narrator of the song isn't Paul Westerberg or even a fictionalized version of him. I think it's most effective and affecting if the song is written from the point of view of a woman who's just been in a relationship with another woman and is shattered by the breakup.

If so, it would be highly unusual, but not without precedent. The Bruce Springsteen song "Car Wash" is written from the POV of a woman named Catherine. And as Westerberg himself showed with "Androgynous," he wasn't afraid to focus on sexual orientations which in the 80s most songwriters, even in the alternative rock world, would shy away from.

There's popcorn for dinner, last night it was cheesecake
A little sleepy-time tea spiked with another heartache
I smell your hair on the clothes I wear
I miss your face
Can't you see I'm bent all out of shape
You got me bent all out of shape

I couldn't lie if I tried
Yeah you kept me straight
It don't feel so good
But it made me feel great
Bent out of shape

You wanna be a dancer and I'm on my last leg
Call but you don't answer I call again tomorrow
I call again today
I smell your hair on the clothes I wear
I miss your face
Can't you see I'm bent all out of shape
You got me got me bent all out of shape

I couldn't lie if I tried
Oh you kept me straight
It don't feel good
But it's gonna feel great
Bent out of shape

I don't need no lover
I don't need no more friends
They tell me to forget her
They tell me to forget her
But I never felt better
I smell your hair on the clothes I wear
I wear your face
Can't you see I'm bent all out of shape
You got me bent all out of shape

Well my friends all say it shows, it shows
Now I don't care who knows
And that feels good
It made me feel great
Bent out of shape
Got me bent out of shape 

Lock me up

The way Westerberg transmogrifies some of the repeated lines ever so slightly, so that "it don't feel so good but it made me feel great" morphs into "It don't feel good but it's gonna feel great" and finally into "Now I don't care who knows and that feels good—it made me feel great" is a deft touch. And the very last line ("lock me up") is interesting in its incongruity—it reminds me, tonally, of the "take it, it's yours tag" on "Bastards of Young," and adds a layer of desperation to the song which raises the entire thing a notch or two.

Musically, the song is like too many on the last two 'Mats LPs (and subsequent Westerberg solo albums), sounding like generic if good mainstream rock. I mean, if not for Westerberg's vocals, this song could pass for Bon Jovi or even Ratt. However, special note must be made of—and major props must be given to whoever's playing—the lead guitar obbligato running throughout the piece, which resembles nothing so much as Lee Ranaldo or Thurston Moore trying to sound like Robert Fripp's Wimshurst machine guitar on Brian Eno's "St. Elmo's Fire." It's pretty extraordinary stuff, and not quite like anything else in the Replacements repertoire.

In the end, it's either a groundbreaking experiment in genderbending, or it's another enjoyable Replacements song with moments of brilliance but which never quite cohere the way it needed to in order to achieve top-level 'Mats. And there are certainly worse fates for any song than to be a good but not great Replacements track.

Nobody

"Merry Go Round" kicked All Shook Down off with a vengence. "One Wink at a Time" brought things down in more ways than one. And then came "Nobody."

The third track is everything its predecessor wanted to be and wasn't and then some. It's another in an even by then long line of Paul Westerberg semi-ballads—meaning songs such as "Unsatisfied," "Achin' to Be," "Within Your Reach," even arguably "Little Mascara" or "Answering Machine," which aren't really ballads in the conventional sense, but where the tempos are mid-range but the heart is worn on the sleeve even more obviously than usual...and for Westerberg, that's saying something.

But unlike the previous track, on "Nobody" absolutely everything goes right—when it comes to the recording, that is, if very much not for the narrator or his subject.

There have been few writers in rock and roll quite like Paul Westerberg. He doesn't have Bob Dylan's intimate knowledge of poets famous and obscure. He doesn't have Stevie Wonder's unreal melodic imagination. What he does have is a knack for wordplay rarely even attempted, never mind equaled, by anyone since Cole Porter.

Westerberg finds unusual phrases, and double or even triple meanings in words, and delights in surprising juxtapositions. The opening to "Nobody," for instance, is a perfect example:

Heartaches on your wedding day

The one thing, of course, which a wedding day isn't supposed to have is heartaches. (Well, isn't it ironic? Don't you think?) Which instantly raises the question of whose wedding day and are they the one with the heartache? Also, is it more than one heartache, or is it that the heart aches? Whatever it is, it's hard to imagine any of the peers of the Replacements—R.E.M., Sonic Youth, the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr—coming up with that opening.

The second line clears things up:

Double takes when they look my way

Obviously, it's not likely it's the singer's wedding.

Knees quake, there ain't a shotgun in the place
You like the frosting, you just bought the cake
Your eyes can't fake

The juxtaposition of the inherent violence of a shotgun wedding with the presumed sweetness of a wedding cake is absolute perfection. As is comparing the cake itself—substantive if not necessarily healthy—with the frosting, which is of course nothing but empty calories designed for temporary pleasure, both in terms of visuals and flavor.

And then we get to the chorus:

Still in love with nobody
And I won't tell nobody 

And almost immediately the song shoots to the very top of the pile of Great Paul Westerberg songs—and that's a pretty tall damn pile.

It's interesting that with the last two lines of that first verse, this song could very easily have gone down an Eagles-like path of comfortably consumed misogyny. But as Westerberg had already proven several years before with "Androgynous," he was not just an unusually gifted songwriter, he was unusually woke for a straight white guy who grew up in the midwest in the 70s. But that chorus takes any hint of derision or blame away from the song's object and instead they enter into an unspoken conspiracy, putting them both on the same level, and yet in a remarkably sympathetic and unjudgmental way—especially surprising given, as the very first line highlights, the emotional turmoil of the situation.

The bridegroom drags you 'cross that room
Said "I do" but honey you were just a kid
Your eyes said I did 

The first line of the second verse are interesting in that it's a standard wedding scene, one most people have witnessed, in person or in a movie, and there's nothing really untoward about it...except that, given the context of the first verse and chorus, it has at the very least a melancholy—rather than joyous—feel, and possibly even ever so slightly sinister. And then, with those last lines, we have classic Westerberg wordplay of the sort never even broached by even the finest writers of his generation, as he takes the most famous and common of wedding phrases and spins them around.

Still in love with nobody
Nobody, nobody
And I won't tell nobody 

Take a look on your wedding night
In your wedding book see what name I signed 

We'll get back to this devastating bridge—which, oddly, seems to modulate down a full step, an unusual move for a pop song—in a bit.

There's a guitar solo, back in the original key, almost certainly played by Westerberg, and it's an interesting one. It's relatively tasteful—perhaps a bit too raucous, tonally, to really be tasteful—with a plethora of bends. It's mainly half and whole notes, with a sprinkling of quarter notes and only a few eighth notes, and no sixteenths. It's somehow reminiscent of solos such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit" which restate the melody, despite the fact it's got nothing in common with the song's main tune.

We get the final verse, which is a return to the wedding reception, and more of the same sad scene:

Hips shake to the band for old time's sake
Now you make your getaway and you're waving to the stage 

Note that reference to the stage—we'll get back to that too.

Another dive into the chorus, but this time the plot doesn't so much thicken as a key detail is revealed:

But on the last page says
Love nobody
And I won't tell nobody
Yeah you're still in love with nobody
And I used to be nobody
Not anymore

And that's the final arrow that pierces both the veil and, fatally, the listener's heart. The multiple uses of the word "nobody" suddenly become multifaceted, as they can now all mean at least two and often three things. All along we've been told that there's no one she loves. But it turns out that it's the narrator with whom she's still in love. He's the nobody in question. What a beautiful twist of fate.

Except by calling himself "nobody," further questions are raised. Is he merely being self-deprecating? Does he mean it? Does he feel he's no one if he's not able to be with her? Is he perhaps referring to the state of his career?

Because as with so many things Westerberg, especially around this point in his catalog, it's easy to look at his lyrics and see how they could very well apply to not only his romantic interests, but to his relationship with his bandmates, or the music industry at large. And after the near misses of Pleased to Meet Me and especially the designed to be a mass hit Don't Tell a Soul, it's not difficult to view this song as a metaphor for his failed love affair with the music industry, especially given that it was produced by Scott Litt, who'd had such monstrous success with R.E.M.

Looked at through this lens, the hips shaking to the band for old time's sake, the getaway, the stage, they all seem redolent of an epitaph, especially with the benefit of hindsight.

Except Westerberg was the one who'd tried to leave the band, tried to make a solo album. He was the one who'd had one foot out the door for some time. So perhaps projection on his part? Maybe this song is actually from the POV of the other band members, who were far from unaware that Paul had fallen out of love with the band?

But let's take a step back to that bridge. It's a devastating couplet...but, really, who looks at their guest book on their wedding night? Is anyone really that disinterested on that night of all nights? Is she really that not in love with her now-husband?

Maybe. Or maybe it turns out that the heartbroken and heartbreaking singer of this fabulous song is the most unreliable narrator since Holden Caulfield (or Patrick Bateman). Maybe she's perfectly happy and he's just a Nice Guy™ standing there internally screaming "you'll be sorry! He can't love you like I can! You'll come crawling back, just you wait!"

But probably not. More likely the singer's reliability is as solid as the word "nobody."

Lyrically, the song is a masterpiece, with more exquisitely parsed out detail than most excellent short stories. Musically, the song is perfection, with the gentle acoustic guitars, and the electric guitar solo that's both graceful and searing. Westerberg's vocals are some his best, with his approachable timbre tinged with his rock rasp perfectly carrying his extraordinary melody: the lyrics and the tune are, unlike the bride and groom, a perfect match. Harmonically, the song is mainly a I-IV-V composition, with brief but vital dips into ii and vi chords to lead into the chorus.

The credits for All Shook Down are notoriously hard to parse, with "Attitude" being the only one that's definitively known to be all four band members. So there's no way of knowing for sure who's playing drums on "Nobody," but I'm pretty much convinced it's Chris Mars. The playing is sparse and tasteful and restrained in a way that the famously untrained and practiced Mars wasn't thought to be—but the drummer on this track sounds just like the guy who played "Can't Hardly Wait" and, especially, "Achin' to Be,", most clearly in the hi-hat pattern—those quarter notes on the almost but not quite entirely closed hats are extremely unusual for a ballad (or balladish) song, and the fact that Mars had played it on the earlier "Achin' to Be" indicates that either he's also the player here or that—despite Westerberg's later claims to the contrary—his was precisely the sound Paul was searching for, and either he or Litt requested this approach, or the drummer himself had heard enough 'Mats to know exactly what to do: play like Chris Mars.

Because you know who was a better drummer for the Replacements than Christopher Mars?

Nobody.

One Wink at a Time

In hindsight, there are few clues to where Paul Westerberg's solo career would go post-Replacements than the second song off All Shook Down.

The song starts with just Westerberg's murmured vocals and his acoustic guitar, but unlike, say, "Unsatisfied" or "Bastards of Young," when the rest of the band comes in, they sidle, rather explode or bash or pop. Westerberg may have used polished studio vets rather than his hometown homeboys, but there's a certain...off-the-cuffness to it, shall we say (although half-assedness might be more accurate). And yet somehow there's a polished sterility about it.

His slightly gruff Everyman vocals are as accessible as always, especially since he's in softer mode here, with only a hint of some of the odd gutturalisms with which he peppers "Merry Go Round." Steve Berlin's horn honks agreeably if unnecessarily in the background, like a chill goose stopping by on his way to or from the frozen north.

The lyrics have plenty of those phrases or unexpected twists that no other post-punk writer would even think of, but none are nearly as effective as the second verse

Baggage claim is this way
So watch her walk down that way
In a hurry
To put an end to his day

which, with the benefit of 20/20 (and 2020) hindsight, leads one to suspect he was talking about himself and situation with the band, given how seemed to be in a hurry to walk away from the accumulated baggage of a handful of brilliant records, even more brilliant shows, and just as many catastrophic ones.

The bridge is a nice counterpoint—where you suspect he's going to let loose, vocally, for the first time, instead he does just the opposite, and gets even softer and higher, almost crooning "any other time's cool." (And yet, alas, this is the one we're stuck in.)

It's all...it's fine. And while many artists very deliberately set up their albums to open with a devastating 1-2 punch, the 'Mats rarely did: sure, "Favorite Thing" and, especially, "Alex Chilton" were the second songs off their respective LPs, but on the other hand, even the great Tim had the meagre "I'll Buy," while Don't Tell a Soul had the agreeable but not really spectacular "Back to Back" (which isn't entirely dissimilar to "One Week," tonally, in its quietude without actually being a ballad).

It's catchy, it's well-written and well-sung and well-played, if perhaps a bit antiseptically (outside the guitar solo which seems like it was maybe a first take and left in as a sign that they hadn't totally left their punk "we don't care" attitude behind, even as Westerberg embraced his inner singer-songwriter.

The end result is a very pleasant three minutes, and a great example of why this is generally considered their weakest album since Stink and—in retrospect—what we had in store for his solo career: brilliant moments and bits and bobs and overly genteel stretches as he tried to prove over and over, long after every else had more than accepted it, that he was an artist and not just some punk. As though the two were mutually exclusive.

Merry Go Round

“Anyone seen my trouble doll?” Paul Westerberg asked the crowd. It was the final tour of the Replacements' life (until 2014 anyway) and All Shook Down’s lead song and first single was “Merry Go Round.” I saw them play live on that tour twice, once as the lead act in Springfield’s (MA) Paramount Theatre (which remains one of my greatest ever concert experiences), and once to a half-filled amphitheater in Mansfield (also MA) as the opening act for Elvis Costello. And both times Paul announced “Merry Go Round” with that query—“Anyone seen my trouble doll?”

I wished I knew what that really meant, because I wanted to know what everything Paul uttered meant. But I didn’t. And I still don’t. I kind of know what a trouble doll, or worry doll, is—some sort of talisman meant to ward off sorrow, I think. But Paul uses the term twice in “Merry Go Round,” and while it could be one of those colorful little trinkets the protagonist wears, it sounds like it’s more than that. In sounds like the trouble doll becomes the main character in “Merry Go Round,” someone who—surprise, surprise, it’s a Mats song!—doesn’t seem to know what she wants or how to come close to getting it. And therefore kinda tunes out the rest of the world and just turns everything pretty much inward. Someone who sounds kinda like…Paul Westerberg? And hell, kinda like the Replacements?

 

Why am I spending so much time talking about trouble dolls? Because the imagery and the melancholy attached to it shows us that for one last time, one last set of songs, we would be hearing the Mats (at least on occasion) do what they do best—sing about fear and loneliness and uncertainty while, at the same time, sounding supremely confident in how fucked up things always seemed to get. From the get go, you know this is a Replacements record when “Merry Go Round” fires up, and that should have been enough to make the fans smile. It sure as hell was for me.

This is how the final offering from the Mats kicked off in late 1990. When eager Mats fans tore open their cassettes or obnoxiously big and clunky CD boxes (what was the damn deal with those, anyway?) and hit play, “Merry Go Round” is what they heard first on All Shook Down. It’s a stop-start funky corker of a song that seems to begin mid-beat and then spend the next 3 ½ minutes playing catch up. Slim and Paul play descending power chords with these little offbeat string bends that give the song a powerful postpunk twang with a jagged edge. Tommy brings his usual jaunty bass romp, and fill-in drummer Charley Drayton (that’s apparently him playing, although it sounds like Chris Mars and Chris appears in the above video behind the drumkit) keeps it churning in 4-4 time. It’s another attempt at the Replacements to do pop. Albeit their brand of pop. And naturally, people outside of their hardcore fan base barely paid attention.

But this song, despite the strife surrounding the band and the fact that it wasn’t even the band’s customary lineup, is a Replacements song to the core. Pop success or no.

"Merry Go Round" revisits that glossy funk that reimagined mid-70s Rolling Stones or even Led Zeppelin, and evoked that hard-but-melodic pattern that traipsed through earlier Mats songs like “Asking Me Lies” (from Don’t Tell a Soul) and a bit on “Alex Chilton” and “I Don’t Know” (from Pleased to Meet Me). It works because it moves and gives the band the room to both slop it up and find the groove at the same time, something the Mats (either intentionally or not) always did as well as anyone. There are little flares here and there that give the song its ample bone structure—the squawky guitar blurts Slim throws on the breakdown of each line in the chorus, the grumbly fill Tommy offers at the end of each verse, the gorgeous breakdown at the bridge and that acidic guitar solo that sounds like a cocktail of hormones and hesitance. And they provide the solid foundation on which Paul can lay his as-typical fascinating lyrics.

“You wake to another day and find
The wind’s blowin' out of key with your sky
Only you can see
And the rain dancin’ in the night
Everybody stands around in delight…
…Hush is the only word you know
And I stopped listening long ago
They ignored me with a smile, you as a child
But the trouble doll hear's your heart pound
And your feet they say goodbye to the ground
Merry go round in dreams
Writes them down, it seems
That when she sleeps, she’s free
Merry go round, in dreams
Merry go round, in me”

This is full-tilt Paul Westerberg gutter poetry wordplay, and it kicks ass. Do I really know what he’s talking about, about wind being out of key with the sky and the song’s main character seeming to take flight at the end? Or what that damn trouble doll has to do with it at all? Nope. But we get the gist, don’t we? It’s about being cut off or, at least, feeling cut off. Life goes on around you, people smile and laugh, even the rain is dancing in his world. Yet to Paul it’s all illusory. His character remains, as always, alone in the crowd.

And this is obviously well-trod ground for Mr. Westerberg. “Achin’ To Be, “Can’t Hardly Wait,” “Unsatisfied,” “Sixteen Blue,” “Swingin’ Party,” “Valentine,” ‘Color Me Impressed”…the list goes on and on all the way back “If Only You Were Lonely,” perhaps the first time Paul bore his soul and showed how life as we know it just doesn’t seem to work for him. For whatever reason it always tends to go sideways, or in the case of this song, just round and round without getting anywhere.

You may notice that I write this assuming Paul is talking about himself. And I am. I just think it so. He wryly hints at it right at the end when “Merry go around in dreams” flips to “Merry go round in me.” The same way the stunning “Achin’ to Be” (perhaps the most indirectly confessional song he ever wrote) ends with “…just like me,” after telling this beautiful story of the mystery girl no one understands. We don’t understand what he’s really saying because I don’t think he does either. But Paul has never been one to come out and say, “I’m so confused and lonely.”

He’d rather wrap it in the puzzle he always sees himself encased in. When he sang “I’ll be home when I’m sleeping” on “Can’t Hardly Wait” he probably came as close to letting us in as he ever has, showing us exactly where it his he feels most at peace.

And when he sings, “When she sleeps, she’s free” it sure sounds like he’s saying the same thing. Paul becomes his own trouble doll, I suppose—something tangible where he can unload all of his worries and escape into—even if that doll doesn’t so much bring relief as it does cement his decision to detach.

“Merry Go Round” is a fascinating way to kick off All Shook Down, an album borne in fracture and disillusionment. To be sure, it shows the distance, the loneliness, the isolation. But it also shows a heart that keeps beating, a mind that keeps trying to decipher what this is all about. And the churning and pumped up music behind it showcases a trump card the Replacements always had, right until the bitter end. Lyrics that could make you laugh, shake your head and sometimes even cry, but music that made you nod your head, somehow understand, and then scowl your way through. All the while moving forward, even if it meant doing so alone. Quite a way to start the final chapter.

All Shook Down: A 30th Anniversary Retrospective

When the Replacements limped off into the sunset—following one last ramshackle live performance of a couple dozen of their songs in Chicago on July 4, 1991—they left behind a curious legacy.

Seven albums and an EP, that was all they gave us, ranging in quality from rough and loose protopunk comedia del art to outright rock-n-roll classics. Yet their audience never really increased the way so many of us expected (read: hoped) it would. Critically beloved until the end, commercially they were largely confined to the dustbin. And much of that was self inflcited, due to the band’s uncanny propensity to keep fucking up at the absolute worst time.

By 1991 they were in some ways a shell of themselves, but in another way finally seeming to be on the right track. Only two of the original members remained at the end—Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson, with Slim Dunlop replacing a sacked Bob Stinson on guitar in 1987, and Steve Foley randomly taking the drumming reins on the final 1991 tour when Chris Mars finally quit. But the legendarily drunken quartet had pretty much sobered up at that point, and their shows (I saw two of them and I believe Scott saw one or two) were much sharper than ever before. And when they landed a gig opening up for Elvis Costello that spring and early summer—just a magnificent pairing of master songwriters and iconoclastic revelry—the future seemed okay. It appeared maybe—MAYBE?—this newest incarnation of the Mats could make a go and keep it moving into a decent future?

Yeah, no. They broke up. And stayed broken up for more than 20 years. Alas.

Their final gasp as a band was All Shook Down, an album released in late 1990 and which therefore celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Reviews of the album were actually pretty good, from the critics’ standpoint, while some of the hardcore fans continued to shake their heads at the band’s journey in an unambiguously tamer direction. But looking back 30 years later there is no denying the quality of many of the tracks on All Shook Down.

What was less certain is exactly who we were listening to when we played All Shook Down. The band’s name appears on the record exactly one time, on the cover above the two dogs looking off in opposite directions. There are no band photos, only one slight double-exposed shot of Paul snuck in on the inside. And there’s no mention of any "band" at all, just a list of about a dozen or so difference players who, in the chilly words of presumably Paul in the liner notes, “played on this recorded thing.” When you listened it sure as hell sounded like the Mats, albeit Late Model Mats...but was it really them? Hard to say.

What we know is 1990 was supposed to be the time for Paul’s first solo endeavor, but he shifted gears (perhaps at his manager’s urging or the record label's insistence) and brought the band back in. He also brought in recognizable faces like John Cale, Benmont Tench, Johnette Napolitano and Steve Berlin, and produced a final 13-song set that would serve as the Replacements’ swan song. And that is the story of them, at least until Paul and Tommy pulled it back together for a reunion tour a few years ago.

So now we arrive at the 30th anniversary of The Replacements’ final endeavor. And as two obsessed fans of the Mats (is there any other kind of Replacements fan?), Scott and I thought it fitting that we take a deep dive into All Shook Down, a track by track look back at the final “recorded thing” our lovable band of Minneapolis ne’er do wells left behind. So for the next couple weeks in this space, that is exactly what you’ll be seeing, one song at a time (and I suppose one wink at a time…see what I did there?).

The merry go round starts Wednesday. Hop on and enjoy the Mats final ride with us, will ya?