It's been said before here during this fun little All Shook Down exercise, and it bears repeating—as the Replacements wound down their career as a band on this one final record, we essentially heard songs that fell into three categories:
1) Genuinely terrific Replacements tunes that they were able to churn out as if nothing was about to end. "Merry Go Round," Nobody" and "When It Began" being the primary three.
2) Efforts by Paul and some form of the band to recapture the old sound that, while all having fine moments, didn't quite get to where they/he wanted. "One Wink At a Time," "Someone Take the Wheel" and "Attitude" are prime suspects.
3) Songs that pointed to a clear path forward to Paul Westerberg as a solo artist. We'd heard the Paul-centric efforts before ("Here Comes a Regular," "Skyway," "Androgynous" and more), but we'd never heard quite so many on one album. "Sadly Beautiful" and "All Shook Down" are prime examples of Paul forecasting what was to come. Two others will follow on All Shook Down.
The first of those efforts shows up today. The 11th track on the album and the shortest Replacements song since back in the Twin-Tone days: "Torture."
To me and maybe only me, this song is the one that truly feels like a Paul Westerberg solo effort, a song that prolly would have done just fine on 14 Songs, which would be out in three years. "Sadly Beautiful" by itself is no different that "Skyway" was, right? A Paul effort done in the clear spirit of the Mats. Even the title track, for all its dusty somnambulance, had that subversive Replacements zig-when-you-think-I'm-about-to-zag quality to it.
But not here. There are songs on All Shook Down that sound like the Replacements, and there are songs on All Shook Down that sound like the Replacements trying to sound like the Replacements. And there is just one song that sounds like Paul isn't just moving on, but has moved on. For good. That's "Torture."
A million baby kisses from a kissing booth on wheels This sign is pretty poison on the envelope she seals Your love is by the way who knows exactly how she feels Whose torture Without you, it's torture What new
You climb into your rocket ship and count from ten to one
There's no television coverage for that loser on the run
You hide yourself in darkness but we're heading for the sun
Whose torture
Without you, yeah torture
What to do, it's torture
Tighter and tighter and tighter soon
Yeah torture
And 809 is rockin' with a party full of lies
And on the tenth floor smokin' til the sun's about to rise
There's trouble in 302, can't you see it in my eyes
Whose torture
Without you yeah torture
What to do, it's torture
Ooo torture
Look. I don't really know what the hell Paul is singing about here. But he sure ain't happy. "Torture" is the final ever example of that wonderful Mats trick of taking some seriously troubled and downbeat lyrics and matching them up with a catchy as hell tune. "Little Mascara" did it. So did "I.O.U." and "Valentine" and "Asking Me Lies." So did "When It Began" a few tracks earlier on All Shook Down. And so does "Torture."
It's so odd. The song almost plays and feels like a demo, yet it may in fact be the most polished track on the album. Paul offers this lovely stemwinding arpeggio that is as melodic as anything he has ever done, and it spins the track upwards into the atmosphere. His lyrics are clear, cool and precise, filled with lithe little witticisms and turns of phrase that made Paul famous(ish). ("You hide yourself in darkness but we're heading for the sun" is particularly awesome). It's downright pretty! And how often do we say that about Replacements tunes? Pretty and supple and catchy...and it makes it 100% clear that the Replacements are a spent force and we will never hear from them again.
Fun, huh?
In many ways "Torture" doesn't really belong on the album because it so clearly is not a band track, not even a smidge. Again, I think it could have worked pretty fine alongside poignant songs like "Things" and the magnificently incomplete "Black Eyed Susan" on 14 Songs. But then again maybe we did need to hear this. Maybe we did need to hear what was left behind and, just as important, what was soon to come.
Paul Westerberg would embark on a solo career two years later with the wonderfully goofy "Dyslexic Heart," and soon enough he would begin cranking out solo albums that would take him all over the map. Some were great, some were okay, all were interesting. And I think "Torture" can hold its place with some of the best solo ballads he ever did. As a Replacements track? It's lost and meandering and struggling to fit in. On All Shook Down or anywhere else.
But then again, lost and meandering and struggling to fit in sounds an awful lot like a certain Minneapolis-based quartet we've been writing about these past few weeks, dunnit? So perhaps it has its perfect place on this farewell album after all.
The truth is Paul Westerberg has never really fit in, nor have the Replacements. And I for one cannot picture a world in which they did. And honestly, would we want them to? Because when you think about the Replacements even trying to belong, to be part of the crowd, you know what Paul, Tommy, Chris and Slim just might have considered that?
One of the bedrock hallmarks of the Replacements was their myriad dichotomies and contradictions. And one of those is the way they all would go back and forth between searing honesty and flippant bullshit, sometimes in the same sentence.
Paul Westerberg once talked about his refusal to give 100%. "I guess it's the fear of failure. I don't want to give everything and have it turn out to be shit or have people not like it. I hold a little for myself. I'm lazy, too. [...] 'I.O.U.' has a nonsense chorus. I could sit down and get words to fit that, but I figure it doesn't need it. It sounds good enough to me."
It's not hard to look at even some of their greatest songs and pick out the word or line which would seem to prove this admission true.
"Happy Town" is one of the shortest songs on an album of short songs. And it's interesting, because it feels like, for once, rather than go with a line or two that are just okay, or a nonsense chorus that sounds good enough, Westerberg simply decided to go minimalist; if there are few words, less chance of them being wrong, perhaps. And the result is a hard, snappy little gem which says its piece and gets out. And what's more characteristically dichotomic than a song called "Happy Town" about a place which is neither a town nor in any way happy?
The track begins with the sound of the band—or Paul and Tommy, at least—warming up and noodling slightly, in an atmospheric way, before the song proper kicks in.
And what a lead-off. Westerberg didn't lack for great opening lines, and if this doesn't quite reach the level of:
Read about your band in some local page
Didn't mention your name
Shared a cigarette for breakfast
Shared an airplane ride for lunch
You and I fall together
You and I sleep alone
Look me in the eye then tell me that I'm satisfied
Well, a person can work up a mean mean thirst after a hard day of nothin' much at all
I'll write you a letter tomorrow
Tonight, I can't hold a pen
it's certainly no embarrassment of a cousin, and the rest of the song keeps pace:
The plan was to sweep the world off its feet So you sweep the garage for the neighbors to see
The plan was to set the world on its ear
And I bet you don't know why you're here
The loose vocal triplets which lead into the chorus are an interestingly theatrical touch which adds just the right amount of musical tension, and will get more overt with each subsequent verse until it's nearly Broadwayian.
Who knew that avenue was bound for happy town
Happy town
Happy now
Happy town
Actors, authors, artists and thieves
Have afternoon parties where nobody heaves
Former strippers and junkies and men of the cloth
And we all fell in line and got lost
It's interesting to note that Westerberg seems to feel actors, authors and artists are natural peers of thieves—and that just when he was trying heroin for the first time, he puts junkies in the same categories as strippers and men of the cloth.
Who knew that avenue was bound for happy town
The plan was to set the world on its ear
And I'm willing to bet you don't last a year The plan was to set the world on fire
But it rains every day on the liar
In happy town
One of the things which makes "Happy Town" unusual in the 'Mats oeuvre is its lack of a bridge. (That and the organ solo played by fan and Heartbreaker Benmont Tench.) Not having a bridge might be one of the things which makes the song feel even briefer and lighter than its barely 3 minute run time.
The outstanding 'Mats book Trouble Boys postulates that in addition to being about Westerberg's dislike of rehab, this is a warning kiss-off to his soon-to-be-ex-bandmates—especially the "I'm willing to bet you don't last a year"—and maybe so. Maybe so. In fact, it probably is. But even more I think it's a classic example of Westerberg pointing fingers and flipping the bird to others when he's really talking to himself. Even if he didn't know it.
There have been bigger bands. There have been (sorry, boys, you know how desperately I love you but you also know it's true) better bands. But there has never been a band quite as contradictory as The Replacements.
Paul Westerberg himself once said something along the lines of there being other bands who could do the loud stuff as well as they did, and other bands who could do the quiet stuff as well as they did, but no one who could do both as well as the 'Mats. And pretending for the moment that the Beatles never existed, that seems obviously true to me.
For all their third record's "Color Me Impressed" and "Within Your Reach" were the songs which announced that the 'Mats were so very much not your typical punk band, for obvious reasons, in some ways it was actually "Treatment Bound" which announced their presence with authority.
[They themselves later admitted that their early hardcore phase was a pose, and something at which they weren’t especially good. I think they’re mistaken about how not-good they were; they may not have actually loved hardcore, but they were damn good at playing it.]
To call "Treatment Bound" a lazy shuffle would be the most understated of understatements; that it falls apart in the middle is far less surprising than the fact that they're arsed to pick it back up and finish it. And yet, for all its lyrics seem to proudly display their beer-soaked loutishness, there's actually a hint that maybe, just maybe, they're whistling past the graveyard and know it's not the smartest way to conduct themselves but they either don't know a smarter way or they're too scared to try. And one of the reasons there's that subtext is even as he's singing about getting shitfaced before the gig, Westerberg is utilizing the kind of wordplay which none of his peers would ever think of attempting, much less be able to pull off. It's that dichotomy—singing about being drunken buffoons without a high school diploma and using the language with a deftness that Cole Porter would have admired while stumbling through a perfectly crafted pop song—that made the Replacements the 'Mats.
They, of course, continued to record songs which were neither rockers nor ballads on subsequent albums: "Androgynous," "Answering Machine" and "Waitress in the Sky" becoming some of the most beloved and characteristically Replacements songs in the 'Mats oeuvre.
"Attitude" is that kind of in-the-middle song at which the Replacements excelled. Famously the only song on the album which features all four members, it starts in classic fashion, with Westerberg beginning the count-in, pausing, laughing slightly, and then rushing the rest of the count. Naturally, the entire band falls in perfectly.
It's a fine performance. Westerberg's acoustic is mixed most prominently, along with Chris Mars's drums, apparently played with brushes. Tommy Stinson's bass bumps along agreeably, while Slim Dunlap drops in sweet bits of electric guitar color throughout. It's not exactly impressive to say that it's far more polished than "Treatment Bound," but it's also considerably smoother than their classic if again not precisely Steely Dan-like "Waitress in the Sky" recording.
Well when you open that bottle of wine
You open a can of worms every time
Now you don't stop, that ain't true
Never said a word, I never had to
It was my attitude
that you thought was rude
It was my attitude
Old habits are hard to break
And I don't know how much I can take
What I think is on the tip
Of my tongue though I let it slip
It was my attitude
that you thought was rude—not me
It was my attitude
that you thought was rude
Remember sitting back in school
I held my tongue until it turned blue
They said I had an attitude
You just failed my test
'Cause I know you be the best
So wipe me off as you conclude
A POV is what I can't use
I got an attitude
Said I had an attitude
The problem is that as enjoyable as "Attitude" is, it feels like "Treatment Bound" redux, a bunch of hooligans talking about how naughty they are. But the thing is, they're not kids anymore. They're all adults now—hell, Slim's kid was nearly an adult by this point—and it's just not that amusing anymore. Now it's mainly just sad. Especially because it feels like this time they're somehow maybe even less aware of what poor decisions their poor decisions are, or at least are pretending to be. And it's all compounded by the fact that the lyrics are often individually good but don't really build to anything— just the opposite, unfortunately, as while Westerberg's personification of his own personality flaw in order to enable himself to avoid taking any kind of responsibility for his own actions is clever, in the end, the opening couplet is the strongest of the entire song is by far.
And there's one more thing which makes it a bit of an uncomfortable experience. It would be bittersweet to hear the last true Replacements recording, no matter what. But that it's this song, with its gentle musical lilt, softly sung in a professional manner by Westerberg—no hoarse shouting, no bum notes kept in, not this time 'round—featuring absolutely wonderful, tasteful drumming from Chris Mars of the exact feel and on the exact type of song Westerberg and Stinson would claim he was unable to handle—makes the entire thing a bit bizarre.
That the final 'Mats recording is so professional and polite even as they're claiming they're rebels, is a dichotomy, but not the kind at which the 'Mats excelled and which made them so damn special. It's disquieting. That it shows that Mars had far more range than his bandmates could admit is oddly disappointing, or perhaps strangely vindicating. And you can't help but wonder if the closing line—"A POV is what I can't use"—is Westerberg admitting in song what he can't actually admit to himself, never mind his soon-to-be former bandmates.
When the Beatles were recording Abbey Road's "Oh! Darling," Paul McCartney woke up every day and went to the studio and before saying a word to anyone would record his lead vocal track, looking for a certain rough first thing in the morning quality. Apparently, each time he'd lay down a great vocal, say it wasn't good enough, and come back the next day to try again, before finally getting a take he was happy with. (As well he should be, as the final result is spectacular...although John Lennon didn't think so, and thought Paul should have let him sing it. Siblings. What are you going to do?)
The title track to All Shook Down sounds exactly like that, only in reverse. The vocal sounds like it's about 3:15 in the morning—or maybe even 6:30 a.m.—and the singer hasn't gone to bed to yet; after a long day's night, he's the last man standing, and he's too wired to go to sleep, even if he's absolutely exhausted. And so what can a poor boy do except sing a tender dirge?
Apparently, that's just what Westerberg did. He laid under the piano in the studio and sang snippets out of a notebook. Which is how you get this glorious mess that will often almost seem to make some sort of profound sense and then suddenly veer off into near Joycean (or at least Edward Lear) gobbledegook...and yet. And yet throughout it retains a remarkably gripping power. Because while the vocal style is reminiscent of McCartney's technique from 20 years earlier, the lyrical technique prefigures Kurt Cobain's writings, especially those which would shortly change the world, in a mere 369 days.
Like Cobain, Westerberg has an ability to take an arresting line—or even a phrase or just pair of words—and explore or, more often, juxtapose them against another equally interesting combination of words having nothing to do with the first and yet somehow all the richer for being limned against each other. Often impossible to parse in a literal sense—although delightful to try—there's a certain energy that comes along with something non-linear that in some way manages to speak directly to the heart.
It's a deceptively difficult way to write; plenty of composers attempted to write whimsical lyrics in the aftermath of Bob Dylan's breakthrough, or John Lennon's "I Am the Walrus" period and few (virtually none) succeeded, and the rock landscape was littered with sad grunge wannabes in the wake of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" who thought all that was needed was to put some absurd emo babblings together and emote embarrassing and rock immortality would be theirs. They eventually found out it was not to be, quite a bit after the rest of us realized it.
But not Westerberg. Several extremely large steps above most good writers, here even hung over and strung out, he manages to string together a lyric whose meaning simultaneously flutters just out of reach and takes permanent root in the listener's soul. All while going back, again and again, to a typically Westerbergian piss-take, different in absolutely every way imaginable, on one of the King's most famous hits. And, again, in oh so Westerbergian fashion, he takes elements of his own life—in this case, the fact that he was at that exact point experimenting for the only time in his life with heroin—and combines it with exaggeration and surrealism and produces gold.
Hollywood cops shoot each other in bed
And I wouldn't go to see 'em they put the checkbook to my head
Tinkertown liquors and emperor's checkers
Some shit on the needle, like your record
The fifth gripping week an absolute must
One of the year's best ain't sayin' much
Throwin' us trunks as we're starting to drown
We're all shook down
She don't do dance and she don't do us
The black and white blues oh yeah I got 'em in color
The fifth gripping week an absolute might
One of the year's best in sight
They throw us trunks says we're starting to drown
We're all shook down
Praises they sing a register rings
One of the time that nobody brings
Praises they sing shake my hand as I drown
All shook down
The impact of the recording itself cannot be underestimated.
The woozy feeling is clearly genuine, from Westerberg's barely-loud-enough-to-be-considered-a-whisper vocals to the tape loop of his breathing, to Steve Berlin's delightfully creepy yet lovely ocarina, it's one of the most fully realized tracks on the album even as it seems on the verge of collapse at any second.
All Shook Down comes across as a mishmash of songs loosely connected by a theme of disillusionment and ends. Some of the songs work absolutely perfectly, whether they are rockers, semi-ballads or deathly quiet meditations. Others don't quite work so well, lacking something that used to seem to come so naturally to the band. I wouldn't say there are any bad songs on All Shook Down, just some that aim for a mark with which the Replacements have always been so used to hitting and, well, they just miss.
Not "When It Began," today's installment. To me this is the Mats firing on all cylinders as a power pop band, a final callback to one of the things they did best over the final 5-6 years of their career when they got a little more serious about making truly great songs. This one falls into a category with "I Will Dare" and "Kiss Me On The Bus" and "Alex Chilton" and "Valentine" and "I'll Be You" and "Achin' To Be" and more. It's not as rough as some of the earlier stuff, nowhere near as loud as classic rockers like "Color Me Impressed" or "Favorite Thing." But it's alive, it's fun, it's edgy, it's perfectly written and, maybe more than any song on the album, it shows maybe where the band could have gone had they kept it together.
With its country jangle that would have made R.E.M. proud and may have even given Wilco some ideas way back when, "When It Began" is fully bathed in this pop glow the band so often could trot out and give the what-for. It sounds light but it's really not; there's a touch of menace underneath the somewhat unorthodox chord progression. It bounces along but it's got enough teeth to leave a mark, and the heightened pace is cheerfully juxtaposed against (where have we heard this before?) lyrics that are anything but. And it paints quite a telling picture of where the Mats were when they pressed "RECORD" on this track.
Stop at a light that shined bright blue
And where you been is still in view
You stopped at nothing at your first chance
Now it's nothing like when it began
Long ago, or yesterday
The queen sits quiet, the jester plays
She plays, "Off with their heads and on with my pants"
Oh it was something when it began
Oh and nothing? That's something I understand
I'll dance to try and make you laugh
I'll play the fool, the king at your command
Oh yeah - HEY!
I never had to bow to you when we began
And I can play you a tune at your command
Oh, and if you say nothing, well that's something I understand
When it began
When we began
When it began
Okay, Paul. I guess goodbye to you, too.
Most bands don't intentionally tell people they're done in song. Sure, some did it with much acclaim and fanfare. The Beatles left fans with the entire second side of Abbey Road, little snippets of this and that which rolled into one huge suite that was irresistible and unforgettable. Cream had an entire album called Goodbye which, well, showed why breaking up was a good idea. Other great bands just walked away (The Police, R.E.M.) or came to a screeching halt (Nirvana, the Sex Pistols) without much adieu. But the Mats did say goodbye to each other, to fans, to the label, to detractors, to rival bands and to anyone else who mattered on All Shook Down. And the true farewell is found in the form of "When It Began," and a chance for Paul to get a bit nostalgic while still unleashing at least a bit of venom one final time. And it works just beautifully.
Paul brings out all his tricks for "When It Began." The absurdities (a traffic light being blue?), the humor ("Long ago...or yesterday"), the word games ("Off with their heads and on with my pants"), and then he wraps it up with a line for the ages, one which may define the Mats in their final incarnation as well as "Swinging Party" did ("If being afraid is a crime we'll hang side by side") in their heyday.
"If you say nothing, well that's something I understand."
Is that or is that not the Replacements in one damn little nutshell? A band so often paralyzed by the idea of success, so terrified that making a career turn that seemed right could lead them to ruin, that they so often just said "Fuck it" and skidded off the highway. Nothing could have changed that about them, it was in their DNA. And as Paul tells us at the end, nothing is probably the one thing they have always understood. Brilliant.
Like "Can't Hardly Wait" with its horns and stops and Chris' delightful fills, or "Talent Show" with its breakdown and shades of "Portland" at the end, there are so many little touches in "When It Began" that make it great. I've always loved when Paul and others yell "Hey!" at the peak of a song (think "I'll Be You" or "Valentine" or, a few tracks earlier on All Shook Down, "Nobody"), and we get that here too. The slide solo is a new touch (it's Slim, right?) that ups the lite-country factor by a bit and creates this breezy feel that crackles with energy. The band (whomever they may be) singing backup on the outro really does sound like everyone saying goodbye. And those little moments of defiance from Paul that tell us yeah, we're having fun here for now, but don't push me ("I never had to bow to you when we began") is a cool reminder of how tension was such a necessary part of the band's formula.
And finally there's this. Paul always seemed to have high expectations of his fans; he wanted them to truly listen, and listen right to the end. It's why a song like "Favorite Thing," while it seems to ultimately careen into a kind of sweet sentiment at the bridge ("You're my favorite thing, bar nothing!"), it emerges after Bob's gonzo solo with a terrific punchline, "My favorite thing...once in a while.") It's why at the end of "Achin' To Be," after three minutes of describing this unreachable mystery girl, he lets us know who he's really talking about ("...just like me.") It's why as Scott pointed out a week or so ago, he saves one hell of a kicker for the end of "Nobody" (You're still in love with nobody, and I used to be nobody. Not anymore.") Paul doesn't mind making us wait to get the full story; it's the mark of a great songwriter to expect as much of the listener as he or she does of him or herself. Joni Mitchell did it. So did Bob Dylan. And so did Paul Westerberg.
So that's why at the very end he makes it clear he's not talking about the band as some third-party vessel that he is all at once nostalgic for and fed up with, but he's really talking about them. The four of them. Or five of them including Bob, who by this point had been gone for five years. He sends a message not just to the band known as the Replacements, but to the specific members, his brothers for the past decade. How does he do this? Like this:
When it began
When we began
When it began
The "we" makes all the difference in the world and personalizes it in such a way that makes "When It Began" fully realize its lofty vision. It says goodbye and good riddance at the same time. It looks back fondly and scoffs at the past at the same time. And it remembers not only what the Replacements were, but who they were. Bravo.
Because after all, Paul was dead on, and never more right in his career, when he sang this line: "Oh it was something when we began."
