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Post by teddinard on Dec 5, 2015 12:20:59 GMT -5
Replying to my own thread, I'm convinced the first line is "Night before Christmas and I had a stiff drink."
How could I have missed it? It's the default Mats action.
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Post by teddinard on Dec 3, 2015 8:32:13 GMT -5
If you're citing "Forever Young" as some self-evidently great song, I'm afraid it won't work with me, as I think very little of it.
It doesn't even seem particularly ambitious to me, let alone great. Bob Dylan's ambitious songs to my mind are the ones that pile on the imagery and loose verbiage, very often, I think, indiscriminately.
"Forever Young" is a string of cliches that would do well on a greeting card. "May God bless and keep you always/ May your wishes all come true/ May you always do for others/ And let others do for you." Good God.
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Post by teddinard on Nov 22, 2015 20:28:21 GMT -5
What I've found online is lousy, viz., line one: "call the prisoners and a hat a stay career." Um, pretty sure it's not that. I'm getting something like "Blah before Christmas and I had to stake the rent ?)." Or is it "skate the rink" (would rhyme with line 2 at least)? Also it's obviously not "The elves and Rudolph they was a-shootin' up junk." It's "Elf on the roof they was shootin' up junk." Here's the whole of what you find online: ( ) call the prisoners and a hat a stay career Standin' on a chimney with just a little wink Movin' outside, bombin' on a truck Coolin' down, lookin' for a fuck Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Gator and a hippo they were sharin' a scarf Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Stockings were hung by the chimney with care Santa in the bathroom was a-combin' his hair The elves and Rudolph they was a-shootin' up junk Not a creature was stirrin' 'cause they all was drunk Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Gator and a hippo they was sharin' a scarf Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up And I was walkin' through the jungle just the other night I was afraid I might get frostbite Everyone was sharin' a harp Everyone was cold but I was a little sharp Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Gator and a hippo they was sharin' a scarf Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up I said I Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Gator and a hippo they was sharin'.... Bundle, bundle, bundle bundle up Any corrections, guesses, etc.?
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Post by teddinard on Nov 16, 2015 9:58:43 GMT -5
I love it (we're talking about disk 2, right?).
It gives a glimpse of what a post-Pleased to Meet Me record that wasn't Don't Tell a Soul might have been like.
I've heard tell that "Wake Up" and "Portland" (both of which I love) were tracks to be put on that missing album, all of which had been recorded in upstate New York before they decided to go in a different direction and record Don't Tell a Soul in Los Angeles (correct me if I'm wrong, please).
That said, I love All Shook Down and couldn't do without it. It's a downer of a masterpiece.
Even Don't Tell a Soul is fascinating to me, though it doesn't really work--a mismatch between ambition and execution, or something. But then again I couldn't live without "Talent Show" and "I'll Be You" (and on some days "Achin' to Be").
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Post by teddinard on Oct 30, 2015 12:16:01 GMT -5
I agree with most of what you say here, but Dylan has implicated himself in some of his "finger-pointing" songs. In the song, "Idiot Wind," for instance, there's the line, "We're idiots, babe, it's a wonder we can even feed ourselves." And furthermore...who is say that Dylan isn't "in character" when he wrote those songs? During a concert in NYC in 1964, he told the crowd, "It's Halloween, and I've got my Bob Dylan mask on." Furthermore, after a motorcycle accident and a period of seclusion in upstate New York, Bob told an interviewer that he realized at some point that when he used the pronoun "you" in a lot of his songs, he was really addressing himself. Fair enough, and you're teaching me things about Bob Dylan I didn't know, so thank you for that.
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Post by teddinard on Oct 30, 2015 9:53:56 GMT -5
Paul can play the "dick" too. "Waitress in the Sky," anybody? I know he can, but when he does, it almost always contains elements that reflect back on himself unflatteringly. So "World-Class Fad" could be a dressing-down of some celebrity, but it's also been plausibly suggested he's singing about himself. And "Waitress" is a good example of the complexity here. Yes, "he" is being a dick, but (as you probably know) Westerberg has said the song was inspired by his sister. a flight attendant at the time, who said she gets treated contemptuously as a "waitress in the sky." So he is "in character" in that song, playing a lout misdirecting his anger at the flight attendant when he should be directing it at the people "up in first class." But he plays the part so convincingly that we're allowed to think he does have a dickish streak himself. "Like a Rolling Pin" is interesting in this respect. All the little changes he makes to that song tend to equalize himself with the person under attack--or put himself lower. So we get "you used to laugh a lot and...I used to laugh a lot." And of course "threw the Mats a dime in your prime." Anyway, I know people admire Dylan a lot (including Westerberg). I just think much more highly of Westerberg than I do of Dylan. It may come down to a matter of sensibility. Where Dylan is pretentious, Westerberg is anti-pretentious--some might say to a fault.
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Post by teddinard on Oct 30, 2015 8:01:34 GMT -5
"Like a Rolling Pin"?
But this is a tough one. Westerberg is great to me because he's the anti-Dylan.
With Dylan, you get a firehose of verbiage, laced with (often low-grade) surrealistic sludge and pretentious cultural references ("Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot/Fighting in the captain's tower" blah blah blah).
Worse, Dylan's characteristic posture is that of a dick. You know, kicking people when they're down ("Like a Rolling Stone"), song-long insults ("Positively 4th Street"), smug superiority ("Ballad of a Thin Man") etc. he assumes the position of superior rock star thoroughly convinced of how cool he is.
Westerberg's wordplay and wit are impressive and complicated but always light, idiomatic, and to the point. They always emerge from a real situation. And the self-deprecation matters hugely to me, and it's usually combined with reaching out to another person ("if it's just a game/then let's hold hands just the same"; "if being afraid is a crime we hang side by side" etc.).
Don't get me wrong, there's something hugely impressive about Bob Dylan's songs. I just don't like them much.
Most people would say I have this reversed, but to me Westerberg's the genius in this comparison. Dylan's an ambitious but ultimately disappointing writer.
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Post by teddinard on Sept 26, 2015 9:35:05 GMT -5
I never took "he sure ain't a dad" to be a positive attribute...I thought it meant that while he might be a biological father, he didn't participate in any meaningful way in actual parenting, and thus, wasn't a real "dad"... Thanks, you could be right of course. Maybe I'm taking the song as more thoroughly positive about these two than it is (good liberal that I am, I want a nice trans anthem). But I do think my first reading works. He might be a (biological) father but he sure ain't a (conventional) dad. That is, he isn't a typical dad who shows up at soccer practice in a grungy t-shirt and backwards baseball cap, etc. Of course being transgendered might force some distance from any normal family situation (in the Reagan era). So maybe it does shade into a little darkness and distance there. But I do think the general tone of the song is overwhelmingly and beautifully affirmative ("overjoyed in this world" and so on). A swipe at Dick's parenting seems a little out of place. So my idea now is the PW took a negative thing about Tommy's dad and made something else of it. Anyway I appreciate the conversation, thank you both.
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Post by teddinard on Sept 26, 2015 9:23:26 GMT -5
The first verse is about Dick, the second verse is about Jane. In that context, the first two lines of the second verse are about Jane's dad: "Don't get him wrong and don't get him mad He might be a father, but he sure ain't a dad" That's interesting, thanks, but I can't see it that way. It's not true that "the first verse is about Dick, the second verse is about Jane." The first verse is about both Dick (line, one, "Here comes Dick" etc.) and Jane (line two, "Here comes Jane" etc.). And the rest of the first verse is about both of them ("Same hair" etc.). So when you get to the second verse, the expectation is that the pronouns (he/him, she/her) continue the pattern of focusing on both of them. An essay could be written, we all know, about PW's tricky shifts of pronouns, but I think the referents here are clear enough. When we get to "And she...", it reinforces the idea that we're still with Dick and Jane, him and her. And it doesn't make sense that we might "get him [Jane's father] wrong." Wrong about what? We know the elders' attitude toward this already. I think it must refer to Dick: don't pigeonhole him, don't make assumptions just because of the way he dresses. That's what the whole song's about. Goes without saying I could be mistaken, of course.
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Post by teddinard on Sept 25, 2015 10:02:25 GMT -5
Sorry, not making myself clear. Maybe I'm mixed up.
The interview goes like this:
Interview: "The line “He may be a Father but he’s sure not a Dad” appeals to me greatly." Westerberg: “Yeah, I probably wrote that about Tommy’s father, he never really knew his dad.”"
If Westerberg wrote the line thinking of Tommy being abandoned by his father, then the father's not being a dad is a bad thing. To be a dad, that is, is to be there for your child.
In the song, we hear that Dick "might be a father but he sure ain't a dad." I have always taken that to be a positive thing. That is, he may be the father of a child, but he doesn't adopt or fit into the typical hokey American role of a "dad," which is a cliche and a myth. Not being a dad just means not being a conventional father. The song is all about being unconventional, after all.
So if the line is about Dick--and I think it has to be--and the song has a positive attitude toward Dick, then it has something like this positive sense.
Am I way off here?
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Post by teddinard on Sept 25, 2015 6:59:30 GMT -5
Thanks. A little surprised by the comment on father/dad line, since in the song it's a positive thing.
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Post by teddinard on Sept 17, 2015 17:29:25 GMT -5
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Post by teddinard on Sept 16, 2015 12:19:40 GMT -5
The ambivalence about success was in the Replacements' DNA from the beginning, long before Bob Stinson was shown the door.
There's "Treatment Bound," there's "one more chance to do it all wrong," etc. etc. Even on Sorry Ma you see it. Is it better to hang out downtown or stay at home and watch TV? And "Careless is the way I'll stay." And I take "disinclined to groove round" to mean "may as well drive straight into the lake."
As for what Westerberg reportedly said to Bob Stinson that night, yes, he should feel haunted by it. But I'd wager that's not the worst thing Westerberg ever said to him, nor worse than many things Bob Stinson said to Westerberg. I don't know, I wasn't there.
I do know, from my own experience, that there are many things you say to an extremely messed-up person that subsequent events (such as death) will soon make you regret. You don't realize how bad those things are at the time, especially when you're only marginally less messed up than the person you're saying them to.
That doesn't make the things said any less regrettable, haunting, or painful.
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Post by teddinard on Sept 14, 2015 22:15:00 GMT -5
But the arm chair psychology about something happening to Paul when he was young and defense mechanisms were drinking and avoidance---well, it's all just speculation. Perhaps it was a way to quell the anxiety, the drinking. Who knows? Agreed. So many people connect with the Replacements and Westerberg's songs and attitude. We didn't all have "stuff happen to us when we were young"--apart from stuff such as being alive. Wanting to succeed and feeling too alienated to care is the story of practically everybody I know. That's why I need both versions of "Treatment Bound": "we don't give a shit" in one, "I'm working on it" in the other. Seems perfectly sane and clear-sighted to me.
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Post by teddinard on Sept 3, 2015 13:40:29 GMT -5
I think their discography/career is perfect just as it is.
Perfect punk rock album, perfect "transitional" album, perfect trio of masterpieces, perfect bad overproduced album, perfect valedictory album. And a trifle a decade and a half later.
Really I've got this whole Mats narrative in my head, it would be a shame to disrupt it by adding more stuff.
A wholly new attempt at a career as old men and only two original members, no thanks.
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Post by teddinard on Aug 31, 2015 7:12:15 GMT -5
It seems to be common usage to describe Nirvana (or more specifically, Kurt Cobain) as "avowed Replacements fans"...I have yet to come across any comments from Cobain where he even mentioned the Replacements or Westerberg. I think people just liked the idea, so they decided it was true... Yeah, I've read Courtney Love claiming that the album Nevermind was named after the PTMM track, but I'm not sure I buy it. There's a 1992 Vanity Fair interview with both Love and Cobain in which Love talks about how the Replacements had "Respect Fame. Big Respect Fame" (as opposed to commercial fame), and how that kind of credibility could be tougher on a band than mere success. Cobain is presumably there when she says this and says nothing to contradict her. www.nirvanaclub.com/index.php?section=info/articles&file=09.00.92.html
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Post by teddinard on Aug 10, 2015 21:09:05 GMT -5
There are some informative Mats threads on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums. This one discusses the Twin/Tone vinyl box set: forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-replacements-vinyl-box-sets-coming-summer-2015.431570/One poster got the following info from Rhino: “Cut from the Rhino remasters from 2008 by Ian Sefchick at Capitol Mastering” Another knowledgeable poster on that thread lists the problems with the 2008 remasters. Oh well. I'll Buy anyway. Mine arrives tomorrow. Don't have ANY of the records, even though I'm advanced in years. Missed the band the first time around. EDIT: note today from Amazon: delivery delayed until 8/26. A problem hand-stamping all those Stink covers?
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Post by teddinard on Jul 31, 2015 8:59:17 GMT -5
Little bit on the AV Club today by a critic named Drew Fortune that rates late Replacements and PW solo above the punk records. Scroll down: www.avclub.com/article/what-works-do-you-love-more-critical-darlings-223070A little ho hum, especially to those of us who find much to love from the beginning all the way to now. I understand people's love of ranking stuff, but it's funny they can't resist denigrating what they rank lower.
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Post by teddinard on Jul 26, 2015 12:22:31 GMT -5
Funny how dogmatic and how wrong that fellow is. Westerberg's best songs make many listed in his "top tier" seem childish by comparison.
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Post by teddinard on Jul 24, 2015 12:35:29 GMT -5
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