Featured Song
"Can’t Hardly Wait" - The Replacements
Did you ever have a friend whose company you thoroughly enjoyed but whom you never could quite get a handle on? That’s what this song has been for me, a friend who was always there to comfort and entertain me - even through its own creators’ various and repeated efforts to try to nail this damn thing down… and never quite being able to do so.
Let me explain: This song possesses one of THE truly great guitar riffs, something so simple and hooky that it feels like it always existed. The first time I heard it, I could’ve sworn that it was an old rock classic from the 60s. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was an original Replacements song.
Its first release was on a bootleg cassette the band released called ‘The Shit Hits The Fans.’ The story goes that their sound man snatched this cassette out of a fan’s recording deck he found hidden by the soundboard after a sparsely-attended show that found the band playing mostly half-assed covers to hilarious effect. However…
Being an avid Replacements fan at the time, I did notice this one gem played aggressively and passionately early in the set before they completely derailed. It’s pretty easy to find on YouTube and very much worth the listen. The tune has a great melody, the band’s playing soars, and the guitar riff (and solos) are handled with grand, reckless bravado by the late, great Bob Stinson. I was hooked. I could not wait to hear these guys put it on their next album.
Except, it wasn’t on the next album. Hmmmm. But their next album, entitled ‘Tim,’ was filled with great songs, so I couldn’t exactly complain. And besides, I was living my life at a very fast pace during that time, playing with hellacious country punk rockers Dash Rip Rock.
After years of drumming in various bands that went nowhere, I found myself in a very enviable position of playing with this band and almost literally feeling it take off from the word go… at least from my perspective. Six months after I joined this band, we were packing venues around the South and were opening for people who I considered my version of rock stars of the day. Bands like Jason & the Scorchers, the Georgia Satellites, and the Replacements.
We played our first opening show with the Replacements in NOLA at Jimmy’s on Willow St Uptown and kicked a pretty fair amount of ass. And yes, they played ‘that song’ to great fanfare. Their show was one of their typical shows at the time, a drunken free-for-all where, by the end, they had all handed their instruments over to fans who took over the stage. Talking to those guys before or after the show about music would have been completely pointless, as they were all pretty standoff-ish northerners who were completely hammered before they even showed up to the venue. During the show, the lead singer (Paul Westerberg) proceeded to rag my band from the stage before diving headfirst into a glorious musical suicide. It was quite a night.
A year or so later we found ourselves on tour with a band from Texas called True Believers (led by the gifted Alejandro Escovedo) playing in Memphis. The album they were touring on had been produced by a gentleman named Jim Dickinson, who just happened to be finishing up producing the newest Replacements album that night at Ardent studios, right across the street from the club we were playing. A lot had happened to all of us in the intervening time: True Believers were struggling to keep together through various rock 'n' roll pitfalls that seemed to hit them all at once. We had signed a deal with an indie label and had seen the release of our 1st album greeted very favorably, along with the daily, self-induced insanity that accompanied being in this band. And the Replacements had fired Bob Stinson, along with their loyal manager, their booking agent, and the band was taking a stab at the big time by attempting to ‘play the game’ or at least their version of it.
Our set that night in Memphis went pretty well and I was relaxing by the bar waiting for the Believers to come onstage, when who should saunter up to the bar but Mr. Paul Westerberg himself. Apparently the Replacements had just finished cutting the tracks for the "Pleased To Meet Me" album at Ardent that very day and Paul was looking to unwind a bit. His presence was very hesitant that night. Not at all the brash, drunken rocker I encountered in New Orleans, but a pensive and soft-spoken young man who seemed to be cautiously enthusiastic about what his band had just accomplished. I reintroduced myself to him and he remembered my band and the show in NOLA. For the next 30 minutes or so he and I spoke about songwriting, my band, his band, and the album the Replacements had just finished. I asked him about "the song" and he mentioned that it was going to be on this new album but that it was “very different.” It was pretty cool to converse with one of my genuine rock 'n' roll heroes on a one-to-one level.
Was he ever correct about the song being different! Listening to the two distinct versions, you’d be hard-pressed to think they were the same song. I’ve never really liked songs about being on the road, but Westerberg had written a brand new set of lyrics in that perfectly captured the dichotomy of life on the road between performing on stage and the daily loneliness and isolation that accompanies the rock 'n’ roll lifestyle.
“Lights that flash in the evening…
Pull a crack in the drapes.“
All the rock 'n' roll devil-may-care that I loved in the first version was completely gone in the second version, replaced by a more tempered and purposeful groove with clean guitars and a plaintive vocal that could be the definition of the word “vulnerable.“ I absolutely loved it, but I did miss the bluster of the first bootleg live version. Apparently so did many fans. The song became a bone of contention for the faithful, some pro and some con.
The band had attempted to record several versions of the song and were never completely happy with it, even the final version they released. It was remixed for a single that didn’t do much and some of the musical elements from the album version were missing. It was a song that never really found its place unfortunately.
For me, the song spoke to exactly where I was at that point in my life… and where I would continue be for quite a while. The rock 'n' roll road is a life of true extremes that can bring out the very best of you at times, as well as the very worst of you at others. I have experienced pretty much every iteration of said road, with any and all of the various triumphs and failures, both personal and professional. This tune has provided me many an emotional warmth over the years.
I believe that the best songs are like spirits, truly alive and vibrant. The very best songs (for me) usually come fully formed as if birthed from another place, products of nothing less than complete inspiration. And like spirits, a great song can go through any number of lives and incarnations, being so many things to so many people.
This song has been that for me. I attempted to put a version together with the speed and slop of the first live version coupled with the clean guitar and lyrical approach of the second. Don’t know if I succeeded, probably not. But it was fun to try. Hope you enjoy.
Did you ever have a friend whose company you thoroughly enjoyed but whom you never could quite get a handle on? That’s what this song has been for me, a friend who was always there to comfort and entertain me - even through its own creators’ various and repeated efforts to try to nail this damn thing down… and never quite being able to do so.
Let me explain: This song possesses one of THE truly great guitar riffs, something so simple and hooky that it feels like it always existed. The first time I heard it, I could’ve sworn that it was an old rock classic from the 60s. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was an original Replacements song.
Its first release was on a bootleg cassette the band released called ‘The Shit Hits The Fans.’ The story goes that their sound man snatched this cassette out of a fan’s recording deck he found hidden by the soundboard after a sparsely-attended show that found the band playing mostly half-assed covers to hilarious effect. However…
Being an avid Replacements fan at the time, I did notice this one gem played aggressively and passionately early in the set before they completely derailed. It’s pretty easy to find on YouTube and very much worth the listen. The tune has a great melody, the band’s playing soars, and the guitar riff (and solos) are handled with grand, reckless bravado by the late, great Bob Stinson. I was hooked. I could not wait to hear these guys put it on their next album.
Except, it wasn’t on the next album. Hmmmm. But their next album, entitled ‘Tim,’ was filled with great songs, so I couldn’t exactly complain. And besides, I was living my life at a very fast pace during that time, playing with hellacious country punk rockers Dash Rip Rock.
After years of drumming in various bands that went nowhere, I found myself in a very enviable position of playing with this band and almost literally feeling it take off from the word go… at least from my perspective. Six months after I joined this band, we were packing venues around the South and were opening for people who I considered my version of rock stars of the day. Bands like Jason & the Scorchers, the Georgia Satellites, and the Replacements.
We played our first opening show with the Replacements in NOLA at Jimmy’s on Willow St Uptown and kicked a pretty fair amount of ass. And yes, they played ‘that song’ to great fanfare. Their show was one of their typical shows at the time, a drunken free-for-all where, by the end, they had all handed their instruments over to fans who took over the stage. Talking to those guys before or after the show about music would have been completely pointless, as they were all pretty standoff-ish northerners who were completely hammered before they even showed up to the venue. During the show, the lead singer (Paul Westerberg) proceeded to rag my band from the stage before diving headfirst into a glorious musical suicide. It was quite a night.
A year or so later we found ourselves on tour with a band from Texas called True Believers (led by the gifted Alejandro Escovedo) playing in Memphis. The album they were touring on had been produced by a gentleman named Jim Dickinson, who just happened to be finishing up producing the newest Replacements album that night at Ardent studios, right across the street from the club we were playing. A lot had happened to all of us in the intervening time: True Believers were struggling to keep together through various rock 'n' roll pitfalls that seemed to hit them all at once. We had signed a deal with an indie label and had seen the release of our 1st album greeted very favorably, along with the daily, self-induced insanity that accompanied being in this band. And the Replacements had fired Bob Stinson, along with their loyal manager, their booking agent, and the band was taking a stab at the big time by attempting to ‘play the game’ or at least their version of it.
Our set that night in Memphis went pretty well and I was relaxing by the bar waiting for the Believers to come onstage, when who should saunter up to the bar but Mr. Paul Westerberg himself. Apparently the Replacements had just finished cutting the tracks for the "Pleased To Meet Me" album at Ardent that very day and Paul was looking to unwind a bit. His presence was very hesitant that night. Not at all the brash, drunken rocker I encountered in New Orleans, but a pensive and soft-spoken young man who seemed to be cautiously enthusiastic about what his band had just accomplished. I reintroduced myself to him and he remembered my band and the show in NOLA. For the next 30 minutes or so he and I spoke about songwriting, my band, his band, and the album the Replacements had just finished. I asked him about "the song" and he mentioned that it was going to be on this new album but that it was “very different.” It was pretty cool to converse with one of my genuine rock 'n' roll heroes on a one-to-one level.
Was he ever correct about the song being different! Listening to the two distinct versions, you’d be hard-pressed to think they were the same song. I’ve never really liked songs about being on the road, but Westerberg had written a brand new set of lyrics in that perfectly captured the dichotomy of life on the road between performing on stage and the daily loneliness and isolation that accompanies the rock 'n’ roll lifestyle.
“Lights that flash in the evening…
Pull a crack in the drapes.“
All the rock 'n' roll devil-may-care that I loved in the first version was completely gone in the second version, replaced by a more tempered and purposeful groove with clean guitars and a plaintive vocal that could be the definition of the word “vulnerable.“ I absolutely loved it, but I did miss the bluster of the first bootleg live version. Apparently so did many fans. The song became a bone of contention for the faithful, some pro and some con.
The band had attempted to record several versions of the song and were never completely happy with it, even the final version they released. It was remixed for a single that didn’t do much and some of the musical elements from the album version were missing. It was a song that never really found its place unfortunately.
For me, the song spoke to exactly where I was at that point in my life… and where I would continue be for quite a while. The rock 'n' roll road is a life of true extremes that can bring out the very best of you at times, as well as the very worst of you at others. I have experienced pretty much every iteration of said road, with any and all of the various triumphs and failures, both personal and professional. This tune has provided me many an emotional warmth over the years.
I believe that the best songs are like spirits, truly alive and vibrant. The very best songs (for me) usually come fully formed as if birthed from another place, products of nothing less than complete inspiration. And like spirits, a great song can go through any number of lives and incarnations, being so many things to so many people.
This song has been that for me. I attempted to put a version together with the speed and slop of the first live version coupled with the clean guitar and lyrical approach of the second. Don’t know if I succeeded, probably not. But it was fun to try. Hope you enjoy.
