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Rating: "In college I was in a rock band and dreamed of being the new Paul Westerberg".
This phrase that Bret Easton Ellis, the most important contemporary American writer, has the protagonist of one of his most famous novels say, perfectly illustrates how fundamental the Replacements have been in the American cultural and social fabric, even without ever achieving mass success. Who knows what Bob Stinson, the original guitarist and soul of the Mats, who died in solitude in 1995 due to chemical and alcohol abuse, would have said if he had been told this anecdote in one of the last days of his life, when he wandered drunk through the bars of Minneapolis entertaining the bystanders with memories of when the punk flame warmed the icy winters in Minnesota. "Intellectual nonsense", probably.
Restlessness, alienation, anger, disenchantment. This is rock, and few have epitomized it like the Replacements.
"Hootenanny" of 1983 is the album of maturity for the Stinson brothers' band, the work that liberates them from the tight confines of the Minneapolis hardcore scene. Take everything you like about the Mats: the raucous and irreverent punk energy, certain swaggering and ambiguous 70s rock forms taken from the New York Dolls, the desperate lyricism that Westerberg began to channel into perfect songs, the rough and robust guitar work - heavily borrowed from the hard seventies of Kiss - with which Bob Stinson added a steel edge to everything. Well, here you find it all perfectly mixed in a magical balance, in a journey that often does not fail to caress unexpected Byrdsian shores ("Treatment bound") and roots (the title track). It's no coincidence the album was treated as a betrayal by hardcore purists, especially since it was released after the incendiary EP "Stink" (which Steve Albini considers one of his main production influences). But it wasn't an abjuration, rather a simple evolution. Not that there were no fragments of supersonic rides on "Hootenanny" (from the alcoholic-rockabilly groans of "Take me to the hospital" to the caustic accelerations of "You lose" and "Run it"), but by then Westerberg was transforming into a fine craftsman of timeless adolescent melodies and vignettes, and the group accompanied him perfectly by expanding the sonic material being dealt with.
Three tracks give "Hootenanny" the stature of a classic, among the very best in Paul's songbook. The bittersweet folk gem "Color me impressed" is the archetype of all subsequent college-rock, with an enchanting melodic line nestled in the tough shell of Husker Du, who would have gladly pilfered a track like that for their "Warehouse: Songs and stories". Much of the successful "Tim" from 1985 - considered by many the creative peak of the Mats - mirrors its model, with the difference that if on that album Stinson is an impalpable presence, by then devoured by the heroin that would distance him from the group, here it is his fiery six-string that gives greater light to Westerberg's masterful writing, in two minutes and twenty-five seconds of anthology.
"Stayin' out late tonight
Won't be gettin' any sleep
Givin' out their word
Cuz that's all that they won't keep"
"Within your reach" is instead a surprisingly striking number: a typically 80s synth, an atmospheric keyboard running through Westerberg's hoarse confessions, with a drop of early U2 pomposity. But it is in "Willpower", boosted by a bass line from Tommy Stinson, as simple as it is insidious, that the Mats outdo themselves: a wrenching and cold ride in the ghostly suburbs of Minneapolis, among brilliant and wild psychedelic drifts that would inspire the edge of plagiarism in R.E.M.'s "Oddfellows Local 151" or "I remember California" and Westerberg raising his cry in a sparse and desolate text, showing despair and vulnerability in equal measure. The best prelude to the monumental "Let it Be", which a year later would definitively inscribe the name Replacements among the legends of the 80s.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Hootenanny (01:52)
(Hootenanny in E)
Well, it's a hootenanny
It's a hootenanny
It's a hootenanny
It's a hootenanny
It's a hootenanny
Boy, the candy
It's a hootenanny
Hootenanny
Hootenanny
Hootenanny
Hootenanny
It's a hoot
It's a hoot
Chris, Chris Mars
Hootenanny
Hootenanny
Hootenanny
Hootenanny
All night long
02 Run It (01:11)
Red light red light run it
Red light red light run it
Lyndale
Garfield
Back up now 'cept
Engine stopped runnin'
There ain't nobody watchin' -- run it
There ain't nobody watchin' -- run it
Lyndale
Garfield
Back up now 'cept
Engine stopped runnin'
Ain't no truth -- run it
Ain't no good -- run it
Lyndale
Garfield
Back up now 'cept
Engine stopped runnin'
Run it
Run run run it
03 Color Me Impressed (02:26)
Everybody at your party
They all look depressed
Everybody dressin' funny
Color me impressed
Stayin' out late tonight
Won't be gettin' any sleep
Givin' out their word
Because that's all that they won't keep
Put the party on the mirror
Oh shit, pass the bill to Chris
Intoxicated lover ending our french kiss
Can you stand me on my feet?
Can you stand me on my feet?
(Everybody)
Everybody at your party
They don't look depressed
And everybody's dressin' funny
Color me impressed
Color me impressed
Color me impressed
Color me impressed
Color me impressed
I call it out
04 Willpower (04:22)
Willpower changed my mind
Willpower changed my mind
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Just in time
Willpower changed your mind (my life)
Minutes seems like hours
Take yours don't take mine
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Here it comes
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Drink and drive
Willpower changed my mind
Willpower
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Here it comes
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Drink and drive
I don't wanna stop it
05 Take Me Down to the Hospital (03:47)
Well I can't breathe
I can't swallow
Here today
Gonna be back tomorrow
Lyin' in back
With your heart attack
In the front seat
With Pete Pete Pete
Red light running
Drag me in
Move the seat back
It's Saturday night
Take me down -- hospital
Take me down -- hospital
Wrap me up
Throw me out
Jockey the phones
Fill out these forms
Take off your shirt
Where does it hurt?
Get outta them slacks
Outta them slacks -- cut the belt
Take me to -- hospital
Take me to -- hospital
Take me down -- hospital
Take me down -- hospital
I don't wanna
Ride no car
Makin' love
In my own backyard
Take me to -- hospital
Take me to -- hospital
Take me down -- hospital
Take me down -- hospital
Hospital
I don't wanna
Die before my time
Already used
Eight of my lives
Eight of my lives
Eight of my lives
Take me to -- hospital
Take me to -- hospital
Take me down -- hospital
Take me down -- hospital
06 Mr. Whirly (01:55)
(Wait wait wait do the whole thing)
Now come on baby do the twist (2x)
Shake it around
It goes like this
Now come on baby do the twist (2x)
Shake it around
Mr. Whirly
Please don't call me
I've been drinkin' alone
Whirly
Please don't follow me home
Mr. Whirly
Please don't call me
I've been waitin' at the CC
Whirly
Surely you know by now
Come on, Whirly
Whoooo
Go on baby
You're cool
Shake it around
1,2,3 strikes
and you are
I said you're the
07 Within Your Reach (04:24)
I could live without so much
I can die without a clue
Sun keeps risin' in the west
I keep on wakin' fully confused
I never seen no mountain
Never swam no sea
City got me drownin'
I guess it's up to me
I can't live without your touch
I can't live without your touch
Cold without so much
Can die without a dream
Live without your touch
I'll die within your reach
Reach
Reach
I never seen no mountain
Never swam no sea
Drownin' in this city
Well, it's really up to me
I can't live without your touch
I can't live without your touch
I can't live without your touch
Die within your reach
Die within your reach
Die within your reach
Die within your reach
Reach
Die within your
Reach
Die within your
Reach
Reach ... for the sky
09 Lovelines (02:01)
Stop it
(sniffs)
Slightly overweight girls need sex also
Send your note and desires
Means of contact P.O. Box 8941
Baby you have been along
I'll read another
As soon as it comes around
Feeling pressure?
Call Lovelines
JD if you need a fishing partner
please let me know
Visitors welcome instruction
5 generation mess you give for naught
Hey Ellen
Mark says hi
Tom what else can I say
I love you very much
I'm glad we're together
miss you a lot
Love kitten
Ooh yeah ooh yeah Kitten
Ooh yeah ooh yeah
Lurkin' lizards lyin' in the tanners (?)
under an oral fix
waiting for the return of the crawling kingsnake
John Lee
okay
grin
11 Hayday (02:06)
(Hit it ... Bob!)
Sittin' at home, I'm so excited
Goin' to the party though we weren't invited
Times ain't tough, just tedious
Get up -- heyday
Heyday
Don't hate it
Mamamama heyday
Geniuses act like idiots
Idiots act like geniuses
Heyday
My heyday
Heyday
Mamamama heyday
It ain't gonna last
Ain't yo
It ain't gonna last
It's my heyday
My little heyday
It's your heyday
Babadaba heyday
My heyday
Your heyday
My heyday
Mamamama heyday
It's your heyday
It's your heyday
12 Treatment Bound (03:15)
We're gettin' noplace fast as we can
Get a noseful from our so-called friends
We're gettin' nowhere quick as we know how
We whirl from town to town treatment bound
First thing we do when we finally pull up
Get shitfaced drunk try to sober up
There'll be no pose tonight no money in sight
Label wants a hit and we don't give a shit
Because we're gettin' noplace as fast as we can
We get a noseful from our so-called friends
We're gettin' nowhere quick as we know how
We whirl from town to town Duluth to Madison
Treatment bound
Gettin' nowhere
(Keep goin')
Second thing we do is walk around
Goto the job or try to hold one down
There's no mass appeal carton's asleep at the wheel
Yesterday's trash too bored to thrash
We're gettin' nowhere fast as we can
We got a noseful of them so-called friends
We're gettin no place as quick as we know how
We're gettin' nowhere what will we do now?
Take it, Scotty
(Tommy: One of the chords at that one part you just fucked it up
Paul: Fucked 'im up)
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