Walk on the Wild Side

Q: when are we talkin'?

A: now. Right now. Now we're talkin'.

RIP Eddie Van Halen

I confess that I have never really been a fan of Van Halen. I love some of their songs, don't get me wrong ("Dance the Night Away" is a perfect song, as an example), but despite growing up exactly during the time when they hit it huge, my VH phase really didn't last that long.

I mean sure, I remember owning the first three albums and getting into it at my musical awakening when I was 12-13. But my tastes later veered in other directions and I kinda left Van Halen in the rearview mirror. Not that this had any impact on the band, of course.

But while the music didn't thrill me, Eddie Van Halen usually did. How could he not? Just the way he made guitar fans out of so many Gen Xers was impressive enough. Wickety-wickety guitar playing is touch and go with me (no pun intended...no, you know what? Screw it, that was pretty good. Pun intended!). Which is why Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen just never got me excited. But when it was melodic and not just going for land speed records? Yeah, I could dig that. And that's what Eddie Van Halen always seemed to bring. Sure it could be lightning fast, but it was tuneful and even, often times, soulful.

"Eruption" was a sonic revelation. His work on "And the Cradle Will Rock" sounded like the guitar version of impending doom. "Atomic Punk." The aforementioned "Dance the Night Away." His epic turn on "Beat It." Eddie could play, and part of being a music fan is respecting those artists who could, even if maybe you don't love their stuff. That was Eddie Van Halen to me.

The other thing? I loved how he always seemed to have so much fun when he played. I ever saw the band live in concert (again, not a big enough fan for that), but I've seen plenty of clips and he has always seemed to belie the classic "lay back and let the frontman preen" guitar God persona. Think about the detached cool of Jimmy Page or (once long long ago) Keith Richards or Jeff Beck. That wasn't Eddie. Even though he had a life-sized, manshaped peacock in David Lee Roth dominating the stage, and later a hardly gunshy Sammy Hagar doing same, Eddie was still out there and seemingly having a blast. Never upstaging the showy glitter Gods at the microphone, but just smiling and hustling and laughing and looking like this was what he always wanted to do, this and only this. Bravo for that. Seriously.

RIP Eddie Van Halen, gone too young at 65.

The Last

"The next one's always gonna last for always."

The first ballad Paul Westerberg ever wrote as the front man for the Replacements (or at least the first one we're aware of) centered around drinking. "If Only You Were Lonely" has come up many times during this All Shook Down look back, because while it was just a B-side few people heard to a single no one ever bought in 1981, it remains huge in the band's legacy. 

"If Only You Were Lonely" was a soaked and sullen country shuffle that was about exactly what the title said it was, and it shined a spotlight on the lethal mix of drinking and loneliness and what it would and could do the then-young singer and his bandmates. The song began Paul Westerberg's career as a peerless balladeer and would signal many monumental moments to come for him and the band. Because sadly and fittingly, drinking and coping with the causes and effects of it would define so much of what the Replacements were about over the course of 10 years, eight albums and so much fractured beauty and weary pain. 

So it's only fitting that nine years later, he ended his career with the Replacements with one more ballad. And this one too was about drinking. But this time, it was about giving it up. That's "The Last."

But before we get to it, let's recap for a moment.

As has been said, All Shook Down is what will always pass for the Replacements' goodbye album, the last thing they would ever offer "together" before shuffling off into solo careers. And "together" is a loose term because there is so little of it on the album. By the most reliable math, Paul and Tommy Stinson play together on about three-quarters of the tracks, Slim Dunlap plays on maybe a little fewer than half and Chris Mars, unceremoniously (and unnecessarily) sacked from the band in these final days, plays on only a couple. And three of the 13 tracks are pretty much Paul by himself, save for the occasional guest appearance. That is hardly the stuff of the "all for one and one for all" ethos that most bands usually practice. But then the Replacements were never like most bands.

They were, at various times depending on where and when you caught them, unconscionably good, insanely reckless, abhorrently sloppy, maddeningly nihilistic, uproariously funny and dizzyingly inconsistent. They had one of the finest songwriters who ever lived in Paul Westerberg. In those early years they had the man who just may have created grunge guitar (in a very very good way) in Bob Stinson. They had a bass player in Tommy Stinson who would be a very high draft choice if anyone were to draft the all-time garage band. And they had (in the opinion of this humble writer and my blogging partner, anyway, and I am sure there are more who agree) a great intuitive drummer who kept it all together in Chris Mars. Later they had Slim Dunlap instead of Bob, who could play a fair bit but was widely credited with being a steadying presence the band always needed. They had a lot working in their favor, is what I mean to say. And it still was never enough for them to hit it big.

Why? Two words. The Replacements.

While not as outwardly destructive as the Sex Pistols or Guns-n-Roses, and not as tragically cut short as Nirvana, Elliot Smith or the Jimi Hendrix Experience were, the Mats will always be one of the most needlessly destructive bands that ever lived. They never ever could get out of their own way. Big break coming with a record label? Blow it up with a drunken, shambolic performance. Huge gig coming where the right people are watching? Blow it up with a drunken, shambolic performance. Hell, a national TV appearance on Saturday Night Live??? (Everybody now) Blow it up with a drunken, shambolic performance. It seems at every damn turn, they were there to pull the pin from the grenade and then slip it back into their pocket.

Dammit.

So perhaps this decade-long road with the Replacements, a period defined by letter-perfect gutter poetry and so much systemic substance abuse, was destined to come to an abrupt stop. Like a drunk driver trying to get his car out of the parking lot but instead crashing it into the wall, stalling and falling asleep until sober.  Perhaps the sudden ending was inevitable, as so many of the tracks that layer All Shook Down ("Someone Take the Wheel," "When It Began," "Attitude") hinted. And within that inevitably we come to their very last and most aptly titled song they would ever write. "The Last."

 

As stated earlier, "The Last" is without question, on the surface, a song about giving up drinking, and perhaps other vices as well. Famously drunken and strung out for most of their career as a band, 1990 saw the Mats beginning to come to grips with addiction and turn things around. Published reports indicate this is the year Paul gave up drinking, and the others may very well have followed suit. Original member Bob Stinson would die five years later at 35 years old not of any particular drug overdose, but basically after a life and body worn down by abuse. That is such a tragic end to such a visionary guitar player, but it's sadly an understandable one. Paul and Tommy today remain productive solo and (in Tommy's case) session musicians, and Chris Mars has switched careers and turned into one hell of a fine artist. (Unfortunately Slim, who replaced Bob, suffered a terribly debilitating stroke a few years back and continues to suffer its effects). But the remaining band members are alive and kicking, and that was nowhere a surefire bet when they were blazing trails and raising hell in the 1980s.

That's why "The Last" serves well as the band's epitaph. It's not the most inventive song they would ever do. Or the most melodic. But it's probably the way things had to end. With a now sober Paul looking back, pondering all those gonzo twists and turns, and wondering what comes next in newfound sobriety.

Does it hurt to fall in love so easy?
Does it hurt to fall in love so fast
Does it hurt you to find out 32nd hand?

Is it such a big task?
Are you too proud to ask?
Remember last one was your last.

It's too early to run to momma,
It's too late to run like hell.
I guess I would tell ya ‘cause it don’t work to ask,
That this one be your last.

And this one, child, is killing you.
This one's your last chance
To make this last one really the last.

Oh are you too proud to ask?
Is it such a big task?
Remember last one was your last.

The next one's always
Gonna last for always.
The next one's always on me..

Would it hurt to fall in love a little slower?
I know it hurts at any speed.
So you have another drink,
And get down on your knees,
You been swearing to God
Now maybe if you'd ask?

That this one be your last?
'Cause this one, child, is killing you.
And this one's your last chance,
To make this last one really the last.

Gonna last for always...
It's gotta last for always...

Paul is filled with questions on "The Last." About love. About what people are saying. About whether or not this time the quitting is for real. And he lays it out there. The lyrics, as tight and thoughtful as ever, sound like something taken from a group therapy session. The questions, the hard advice ("This one, child, is killing you," "You been swearing to God...now maybe if you'd ask?) seem to be offered not by some sage all-knowing advisor, but by someone who is in the trenches and suffering with you. And while the song lopes along at a very deliberate pace and doesn't seem to be in any hurry to get there, there is desperation in the words. This is the last chance. The last has to be the last this time if you want to live. 

And that makes it downright haunting. This is crunch time. Listen to Paul at the bridge and in the outro, barely above a whisper, uttering those words that no drunk ever wants to hear: "The next one's always gonna last for always...gotta last for always...") Paul plays both the role of angel and devil on the shoulder on this song, offering words that are equal parts foreboding and tempting without being overly reassuring. Something I am guessing anyone who has ever battled dependency knows about all too well.

(As a side note, this rings very true to me on a personal level. I have a dear, dear friend who nearly died from alcohol abuse a bit more than a decade ago, and he was no told in no uncertain terms by this doctor that, because of the damage this caused his body, it's not that drinking again may kill him, but it will. Period. And as a very happy side note to this side note, that friend is now more than a decade sober and living a wonderful life.)

So yes, "The Last" is clearly a song about giving up drinking, just as "If Only You Were Lonely" was a song that centered around a drinking life. But is it more? Knowing Paul's writing the way I think I do, I would have to say yes. It's an acknowledgment, with certitude this time, that it's over. What's over? The band, without question. His drinking days too. Maybe his first marriage. His youth? The band's friendship? His run as underground rock God? His days of rebellion? Maybe all of the above? Any and all are on the table. Paul makes the urgency clear, and offers words as definitive and NOT open to interpretation as anything he ever wrote. "This one's your last chance to make the last one really be the last."

The Replacements could have ended All Shook Down with a delightfully poppish goodbye from the band with "When it Began." They could have ended with the quirky shuffle that supposedly is the only track they all played on in "Attitude." And hell, they could have ended with the balls-out rocker that was the previous track, "My Little Problem," as a final "Fuck off" to anyone still listening. All likely would have worked as the closer. Instead they chose, for once, perhaps the obvious course.

"The Last" is a lilting little exercise in restraint, a word that didn't always seem to go hand-in-hand with the Mats in the day. The piano is (I think) all Paul and is a tasteful bit of cocktail lounge melancholy, a few chords and arpeggios played over and over that in some ways evoke "Androgynous" from many years earlier. Either Paul or Slim offers some nifty acoustic picking that propels the song as it rolls along. Tommy sounds like he's playing the upright bass (not sure if he is, but it sounds like it) and keeping it perfectly aligned with Michael Blair's subtle brush work as the guest drummer. The music is sweet and understated, and it allows Paul's lyrics to take center stage. Could this have played better as a full band mid-tempo number? Or as the country ballad that started it all in "If Only You Were Lonely?" Perhaps. Should it have? I don't think so. I think the band had to depart the darkened stage this way.

Because it's the lyrics that need to come through first and foremost, that need to get your undivided attention more than all. In the best of their best work of earlier years the lyrics always came through, sure, but not as much as the gorgeous 12-string opening of "Unsatisfied." Or the anthemic revelry of "Left of the Dial." Or the limitless swinging splendor of "Can't Hardly Wait." "The Last" has none of that, because what Paul Westerberg really needed, just one last time, was to have his words be heard. He and the band had been through too much for them not to be. Which is why "The Last" works so well, I think, as the band's sad but inevitable coda.

Paul said it himself. This was his last chance. And he made it count.

My Little Problem

a

Paul Westerberg wanted to grow up. He wanted to be a serious artist. He wanted to be a successful artist. He wanted to be a solo artist—a successful one. 

That much had been clear to anyone who'd been paying attention for years. He'd hinted at it often enough over the years in interviews, although he'd often then walk it back in the next interview, or even the next sentence of the same interview. But it came up so frequently that it was pretty much unmissable. 

And even if you didn't read the interviews, there were the horns and strings on "Can't Hardly Wait" and then then the entire Don't Tell a Soul album. And that's without even taking into account "If Only You Were Lonely" and "Within Your Reach" and "Here Comes a Regular" and "Skyway." And then the essentially solo-album-in-all-but-name All Shook Down. 

But he'd always gone back and forth between sensitive solo singer-songwriter and boozy rave-up monster, as at least one song from each of their records makes crystal clear—and that's without even getting started on their legendary (and often legendarily horrible) live shows. 

So the guy who dismissed one of Tim's balls-to-the-walls rockers thusly: 

"[A] song like 'Dose of Thunder'—a song I hate that Bob and Tommy and Chris loved 'cause it was like Ted Nugent or something. I didn't want to do the damn thing but I would try 'cause they wanted to, and it sucked pretty much all the time.”

is also the guy who would write (or co-write) "Red Red Wine" and "I Don't Know" on the next album, and "I Won't" on the famously overproduced one after that and then on their last gasp, "My Little Problem." 

The opening riff makes it obvious why so many critics went for the easy shorthand of the Replacements being the Rolling Stones to R.E.M.'s Beatles. That guitar crunch, backed by a deliberately caveman-like beat is classic Stones. (Or would be if the Stones had written and recorded anything this good in the late 80s/early 90s.) 

But it's interesting that this slab of kickass rock and roll just isn't that far from "Dose of Thunder" — except that in addressing the real life drug problem several band members had (most obviously original lead guitarist Bob Stinson) and nodding to notorious drug user Johnny Thunders, the earlier song at least sorta kinda tried to say something. Whereas there's less lyrical depth to this, the first duet on a 'Mats album, than almost any other song they did. It's just a male and a female trading lines, saying...nothing, really. Which is...really weird, honestly. Westerberg could get lazy, but he usually almost couldn't help but drop a killer couplet or fantastic bridge in. Here there's just nothing to say and it's not even said interestingly.

Except they say it so well. Paul's guitar is absolutely demonic, Tommy Stinson is typically great on bass, Michael Blair does a super Chris Mars meets Charlie Watts with just a hint of Phil Rudd tossed in, and Johnette Napolitano absolutely demolishes her vocal part. The bit where the bridge goes into the chorus is really awkward—it sounds like they maybe had an idea how to make the transition more organic but just couldn't be arsed enough to actually figure it out, so went with the jarring grinding of gears and thought, enh, good enough. 

Put it all together and it turns out there's really pretty much nothing to the song...but damn does it sound good, largely on the strength of Napolitano's vocals and Westerberg's rhythm guitar. In fact, the only problem is that as great a guitarist as Westerberg can be, this track — nearly alone amongst post-1985 'Mats recordings—really could have used Bob Stinson's shredding. Because it sounds like the exact kind of song that Paul used to write for him. And maybe, in the end, other than the guest duet vocal, that's the only really gripping takeaway: once again, seemingly unaware, Westerberg was writing to himself and about himself, but looking at perhaps the most important relationship in his life through the guise of a tumultuous romance gone wrong. 

That guitar, though. 

The feeling you're gettin' is downright depressing
Do you foresee a way out for me

Well it's not my problem to help you solve them
Do you wanna go through it, do you really wanna do it

Don't you wanna be my little problem

Probably tell your friends you were on a bet
All the many pieces that you're never gonna mend

Let's put it together some way, somehow
Something's wrong but I can't stop now
Don't you wanna be my little problem

Slide up next to me any time

Don't you wanna be my little problem
I never had a problem 'til I knew you'd try to solve it
Well I never had a problem, don't you...'til I told you 
The feeling you're gettin' is downright depressing
Do you foresee a way out for me

I never had a problem 'til I met you try to solve 'em
Oh I never had a problem, don't you wanna

Don't you wanna be my little problem
Shutup next to me any time

Don't worry I can see my little problem
Don't you wanna be my little problem

My little problem