Replacements - Let It Be POLL

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn306/Floridian_20/ReplacementsLetItBe.jpg

i think we've done this before, but i'll say sixteen blue

Androgynous

or Unsatisfied. This is difficult.

yeah kid it's a-really hip: replacements LET IT BE poll

I listened to the first four songs off this at the gym this week because of this thread, and let me tell you it made me run like hell on that treadmill! I can't figure out if I should choose "Answering Machine" for purely sentimental reasons or if I should try to be more objective. Thank goodness I've still got time before the poll ends.

― Bimble, Friday, January 11, 2008 8:21 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Also another thing I'll always remember is the splotch of white paint that was on the sleeve of my vinyl copy somewhere around Tommy Stinson's legs in that photo. One of those charming imperfections of pressing you would never see now. (and no, no jokes about him cumming please) Anyone else have a botched pressing of the sleeve of this?

― Bimble, Friday, January 11, 2008 8:26 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

;-)

yeah this has been done but iirc "seen your video" was robbed, i'll rep for it this time and i think sarge has my back

Androgynous, but Unsatisfied is great too.

^^ #'s 3 and 2, respectively

this album finally opened up to me this weekend after like a year of *appreciating* it but not really loving it. now i love it. and i vote "we're coming out"

Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out

Answering Machine

"seen your video" def

"Androgynous" seems to get better year after year for me, really a pretty profound and empathetic song for a straight dude to write about sexual ambiguity/confusion

"i will dare" simply because it's such a great album opener. there's something about it that, when i hear it, makes me excited to be listening to the record.

"favorite thing" last time, "favorite thing" still

Answering Machine, because after all these years I still don't have a fucking clue how to play it on geetar. I've figured out US Maple songs more easily.

i think it's an actual answering machine in the background, could be wrong

Favorite Thing 4EVA!!!!!!

favorite thing" last time, "favorite thing" still

― would you ask tom petty that? (tipsy mothra), Monday, June 8, 2009 3:15 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

could easily have voted androgynous or black diamond or answering machine or unsatisfied or favorite thing tbh i'm just feelin we're comin out most right right now

"i think it's an actual answering machine in the background, could be wrong"

That voice at the end -- "If you'd like to make a call....", etc., does that still come on? I haven't had a land line in a few years and I can't remember. That woman must have the most listened to voice in U.S. history.

yeah i get her for busy lines and automated voicemails

nobody likes "Gary's Got a Boner." Will one of the contrarians on here just vote for it already?

i like "gary's got a boner". but it's one of their bar-band rock numbers, which work fine as album cuts, they just don't jump out as anybody's favorite song. (see also "dose of thunder," "shooting dirty pool," etc.)

Answering Machine, because after all these years I still don't have a fucking clue how to play it on geetar.

rumor has it Open A with a capo on fret 2 will be a good place to start

i have voted 'unsatisfied' in both of these polls. has there ever been a TIM poll?

i will dare

Sixteen Blue

could easily have voted androgynous or black diamond or answering machine or unsatisfied or favorite thing tbh i'm just feelin we're comin out most right right now

^^^^rEAL tALK.

on the previous poll i voted i will dare
this time ill go with androgynous.

My prediction: Current vacillation will lead to me listening to this album, like, ten times in the next few days, going from one option to another as if my vote really matters, then ultimately forgetting to vote at all and yet feeling OK about whatever wins.

Voting once again for "Favorite Thing."

Now we're talking! (never mind fuckin' Tim).

There really isn't a bad track on this record. I'm going with "We're Comin' Out."

Eh, Tim's not so bad song-wise. It's the production that sucks.

favorite thing

Kidding about the bad track thing? "Gary's Got A Boner" is one of the most cringe-worthy songs I've heard in my life.

i can think of a lot cringier songs from Tim or Don't Tell a Soul

Kidding about the bad track thing? "Gary's Got A Boner" is one of the most cringe-worthy songs I've heard in my life.

....yet still better than most of Tim.

People, people, dudes. Your sense of propriety is completely gayass! Gary's Got A Boner is an high quality rockin jam.

for real, plus duh it sounds like "cat scratch fever"

cringe-worthy sort of implies that it's done in earnest; but this is a joke song, top to bottom.

no--it's a metaphorical exploration into the journey of a young man's wrenching, yearning struggle with priapism

Answering Machine v. Unsatisfied. Thinkin' the latter.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Androgynous is one of the best examples ever recorded of the "less is more" minimalism style in pop/rock.

nah its just a song where they played piano

maybe, but it's not the initial meaning but the result that counts.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Love all of those examples you gave. But not, say, "dyslexic heart."

Which you mentioned first.

totally -- i always enjoyed his turns of phrase until one of them made me embarrassed for him (heart/glasses)
it's a catchy song but he's too deep in his bit for me at that point. whoever said everyone gets off the charm bus at different pojnts otm

i was a verbose teenager when i loved this band the most, so it makes sense

A big Replacements mystery to me is why I rarely (ever?) hear them on the radio here. XRT is practically made for them, given their bent and demographics, but they're nowhere near as common in the wild as I might expect. Maybe they are still more or less blacklisted? Are they ever heard out and about in Minneapolis, or is that too on the nose/counter to midwest modesty?

"Dyslexic Heart" is the only Westerberg single up to this point that I loathe.

it's partly the cutesyness and part the na na na na

i really like the other song from the singles soundtrack "waiting for somebody" and i even have a huge soft spot for "runaway wind" because it's real sentiment, not hot buttered treacly sentiment

"you don't blow like the breeze you were born to be" still makes me tear up

For a long time, I didn't actually own 14 Songs because I burned a copy of the album while adding those two Singles tracks as the opening numbers, beginning with "Dyslexic Heart." When I finally got the CD, I really missed those two tracks - cumulatively with "Knockin' on Mine" as track three, they got the album off to a roaring start, and at least for me, it made a huge difference.

I should say I hated the "na na na na" part when I first heard it, so I'm not sure what possessed me to use "Dyslexic Heart" as the opening track - frugality? completeness? - but eventually it just worked for me.

it's partly the cutesyness and part the na na na na

otm.

Yeah, I like "Waiting for Somebody" and a few of the faster songs on 14 Songs, but, boy, I don't like him as lead guitarist.

Huh, I think he's a great guitarist.

He plays an excellent lead on "Johnny's Gonna Die."

His part in "Alex Chilton" is good.

I thought most of PTMM was actually him (except Luther on “Shooting Dirty Pool”)?

"I Will Dare" belongs on

Songs with an all time verse that the chorus doesn't come close to delivering upon

I thought most of PTMM was actually him (except Luther on “Shooting Dirty Pool”)?

― birdistheword, Monday, November 24, 2025

It is.

The guitar playing on that album is kind of mostly ho-hum though

yeah by that point the leads hotter than a urinary infection were long gone

Speaking of sentiment, I love "First Glimmer" on 14 Songs — a great nostalgia-for-young-love song, and the leaves and jackets lyrics make it one of my favorite autumn ballads.

I love Dyslexic Heart, it’s the first Westerberg song I ever heard. I remember coming out of Singles at the Hampstead ABC, aged 14ish, desperate to get a copy of the “na na na na” song. And then the first Replacements CD reissues came out at the same time. And then inevitably ten years later I became a bad music journalist.

"Dyslexic Heart" sounds better than I remembered it

Perhaps the glut of reissued 'Mats material has softened my resistance to Paul's solo work.

I had never heard that song until today and I think your older opinion was the correct one lol

^^^ you've got a dyslexic taste

lol j/j

jajaja!

ChatGPT, is dyslexia related to shortsightedness

the mehr book claims that the overwhelming majority of guitar parts you hear on any Mats studio records is Paul: if it's very obviously super-ill, gonzo shit like the "Dose of Thunder" solo or the "We're Comin Out" solo, that's Bob, but the otherwise it's Paul; like the solo on "I'll buy" is Paul: the book also says that through most of his teen years, before Never mind the Bollocks, Paul was looking to be a lead guitarist, was very studious as such, and only resolved to be a songwriter relatively late… Bob's favorite player was steve Howe, although his crash and burn style doesn't suggest much familiarity with super chops dudes, except he does sound like Sonny Sharrock often; I think Mehr, or possibly Paul, makes the point in the book that those guys were punks in the sense of being legit degenerates and malcontents, and not at all in the storebought, housebroken sense of walking around in your Misfits t shirt and spiky haircut, clutching Maximum R&R.

Yeah, the story goes that Paul, walking home from work, was introduced to Bob by passing his house and hearing him playing Yes's "Roundabout."

Do tell

the mehr book claims that the overwhelming majority of guitar parts you hear on any Mats studio records is Paul

Already mentioned that the one that surprised me the most is that Paul played the second, superior solo on "Johnny's Gonna Die," be interested to know of any other such solo I always thought was Bob.

I think Mehr, or possibly Paul, makes the point in the book that those guys were punks in the sense of being legit degenerates and malcontents, and not at all in the storebought, housebroken sense of walking around in your Misfits t shirt and spiky haircut, clutching Maximum R&R.

― veronica moser, Wednesday, November 26, 2025 12:54 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would say, just generally, the Twin Cities punk scene was far less "year zero" than a lot of punk scenes, starting with the chopsy and still somewhat mid 60s Who like Suicide Commandos, and even Huskers didn't stay hardcore for long especially with Grant's love of 60s pop, covering the Byrde, Mats obviously very classic rock indebted

Reminds of a friend of mine in Austin trying to describe why the bands from San Antonio seem to have much more rock and roll energy at their disposal by saying that "it was the release after getting off work at the AM/PM Minimart."

Mats obviously very classic rock indebted

For sure, but key that they also grew up on AM radio in the pre-classic rock (as radio station genre) era. I'm 50, but friends of mine 10 years older than me have tales of road trips stuck listening to AM radio, hearing all sorts of shit. And then Paul also had his sister's record collection, and then later started buying his own punk stuff. Taken as a whole the formula is there: his lizard brain was totally familiar with bubblegum and whatnot from the radio, he got cooler stuff at home from his sister, and then on his own discovered the Sex Pistols. So basically, the Archies plus the Faces plus the Pistols as a foundation.

I think I Bought a Headache was about a Foghat concert?

I know seeing the Faces was big for Paul, but I think they were into all that butt rock, too (like Kiss), because that was what was available. Like, you get the music you get, not the music you want. I remember reading an interview with iirc Jon Langford of the Mekons about the number of times he saw Yes, because Yes was constantly touring around the UK and pre-punk was often the only live option. Def. Patterson Hood, he of the Replacements our-band-could-be-your-life epiphany, saw basically anything that came through Alabama until he learned about punk and other stuff. It's probably true for anyone of that era even slightly off the beaten path, right?

Feels like at the start one could have assumed that they were making fun of much of the cover material they performed but then eventually it became clear that this was not quite the case.

Somehow this reminds of an interview with Alice Cooper where he talks about liking the Bee Gees disco material but not being able to admit it to anyone.

and also jimi "i just like how this army jacket looks on me" hendrix

People thought he was making of Mister Bob Dylan, and his grandmother over there?

the story i heard was that people thought it was a protest against the war but he said he just liked the jacket? honestly i'm pretty sure i heard that in middle school and never looked into it. that and "music is my religion"

anyway this thread got me relistening to a bunch of replacements records and to 14 songs but i think for the time being i'm still pretty much a Pleased to Meet Me person and that's it

My favorite "pleased to meet" moment is still the end of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whIMah7Yi_4

They put a lot of heart in the Black Diamond cover. Also of course it's an objectively great song.

Covers are the only way to make Kiss songs listenable.

otm

thirded #pvmic

sallying fourth

i once did an acoustic cover of “Cold Gin.”