“Everything was Almost”

I yelped in a brief fit of joy this morning when the words “Interview: Paul Westerberg” showed up in my Google Reader.  As I read Joshua Klein’s terrific interview with the indie icon, several things became perfectly clear.  I’ll present them to you as a numbered list.

1.  I have a profound love for The Replacements.

OK, that’s not really new news.  However, it’s startling how clear these things become with something as simple as an interview.  If I had to distill these feelings, I’d focus in on the band’s singularity.  Sure, many critics talk about the ‘Mats legacy, their being stuck between the late ’70s emergence of punk and the early ’90s “revival,” or their (in)famous live shows.  However, few bands did everything that the Replacements excelled at – most notably for me a raucous mix of punk’s energy, Westerberg’s acute ability to capture human nature, and, most importantly, damn good songs.  Klein and Westerberg discussed the concept of the band’s “legacy.”

Pitchfork: Even to this day, when somebody says a band is influenced by the Replacements, often times they’re just talking about alcohol intake. Certainly, no other bands sound quite like the Replacements.

PW: Yeah. It’s the label they put on you if you don’t come up with one. The bands we toured with– R.E.M., every band I ever knew– drank and took their share of substances. They just weren’t known for it. I guess we were the first– Christ, we weren’t the first band to get up there loaded.

2.  The Replacements should never, ever get back together.

To be fair, I’m game for reunions (see: Pavement, My Bloody Valentine), but I’m not sure that a ‘Mats reunion would satisfy (pun avoided) anyone.  In addition to noting that a reunion would only have two original members (Westerberg and sometimes GnR bassist Tommy Stinson), Klein & Westerberg discussed the band’s dubious live reputation

Pitchfork: In a lot of ways you guys got a real bum deal. When you were on, you disappointed the people who came to see you sloppy and falling down. When you were sloppy and falling down, you disappointed the people who came to see you on. You could never make everybody happy.

PW: I don’t know when– what year, what time– that happened, but it definitely came to that point, where it was a lose/lose situation for us to get up there. Lots of times we would try to balance it. We’d get up there wasted, but by the end of the set we’d sober up. We’d bring it together at the end! [laughs] The theory was that people would remember the last thing they saw. We made our grave for us to lay in. We’d horse around, and then everybody wanted that. A few of us got tired of it. Some of the band was very serious, and others wanted the care-free early days. I was sort of caught in the middle.

One would think a reunion (Klein suggested that rumors linked the Replacements to Coachella a couple years ago) would take this dualism to the (il)logical extreme; more than likely, Westerberg, Stinson, and friends would provide workman versions of their back catalog.  I’d be content with seeing Westerberg and his band tear through a few classics along with his own songs.

3. Like the best forms of art, I learn more about myself through these songs.

I’ve gone into this a bit when I decribed how my “anthem” shifted from “Bastards of Young” to “Road to Nowhere,” so I’ll only briefly discuss.  No matter what mode Westerberg worked in – the odd tape manipulations of “Within Your Reach,” the power-pop of the Pleased to Meet Me album, or the alt-country “I’ll Be You” – I always appreciate Westerberg’s perspective.  Maybe I’ve been encouraging my students to connect with literature too much, but these songs simultaneously remind me of very specific times/events in my life without becoming painfully tied to my history.  That’s a pretty remarkable accomplishment, especially for someone as invested in music as I am.

Perhaps because I like to root for the underdog, or perhaps because I simply want Westerberg to be rewarded appropriately, I was pleased with the last interchange in the interview:

Pitchfork: Is what your music has meant to so many any consolation for missed opportunities?

PW: Oh, yeah. I listen back, and I hear what’s there, and I know in my heart, in my gut, that we were the real deal. No one can take that away. You can call us buffoons, or clowns or whatever. But when we wanted to, we were as good as anybody.

4.  I need to get those Replacements reissues soon, and I need to listen to Hootenany sooner.