The Replacements were coming off of their most successful album yet. Pleased to Meet Me saw the band move away from their punk rock roots and find their footing with crafted songs. They always had good songs, but at this time the band was finding its identity. As they decided to move forward without founding member Bob Stinson, the band added guitarist Slim Dunlap. They toured extensively to promote the album and built a legendary reputation. Shows either struck a chord with the audience and were transcendent, or they devolved into a drunken mess with bizarre covers or even onstage fistfights between band members.
The Replacements were a walking contradiction. Their record label was looking for a song to break through and achieve mainstream success. It seemed every step forward the band took they would sabotage themselves in some way and ultimately take two steps back. After recording in Memphis, Tennessee, and working with producer Jim Dickinson, the band were looking for a new direction. They went to upstate New York’s Bearsville Studios and worked with producer Tony Berg. From all accounts, the alcohol was free-flowing, and things got out of control. While Sire Records was looking for a hit, the band were crashing a car, throwing knives at each other, and destroying recording equipment. Let’s take a look at the story behind “I’ll Be You” by The Replacements.
If it’s a temporary lull
Why’m I bored right outta my skull?
Man, I’m dressin’ sharp an’ feelin’ dull
Lonely, I guess that’s where I’m from
If I was from Canada
Then I’d best be called lonesome
And if it’s just a game
Then I’ll break down just in case
Oh yeah, we’re runnin’ in our last race
Well, I laughed half the way to Tokyo
I dreamt I was Surfer Joe
An’ what that means, I don’t know
Never Write Down the Words
Lead singer/guitarist Paul Westerberg’s songwriting was evolving by leaps and bounds as the rest of the band was working on the new material. The songwriter would never commit his songs to paper and refused to include the lyrics in Replacements albums. Bassist Tommy Stinson told band biographer Bob Mehr, “He figured if you don’t write it down, they have to interpret it mentally. That way, your song can mean anything to anyone.” Added Dunlap, “Every time I would ever go to his house, he would play me a bunch of new songs that killed, none of which ever saw the light of day. He would just tape over something when the next song idea came along.”
A dream too tired to come true
Left a rebel without a clue
And I’m searching for somethin’ to do
And if it’s just a game
Then we’ll hold hands just the same
So what, we’re bleeding, but we ain’t cut
And I could purge my soul, perhaps
For the imminent collapse
Oh yeah, I’ll tell you what we could do
You be me for a while
I’ll be you
The Pressure Was Mounting
As the band continued working with Tony Berg, the pressure was mounting. It felt like the band needed a hit, or else it was all going to come to an end. Lenny Waronker of Sire Records felt “I’ll Be You” was the most promising of the new batch of songs, but it still needed something. The band worked up a basic arrangement of the song in the Bearsville studio. As they continued to work, they added piano and a vocal jump in the third chorus to ramp it up. Metallica was in the other studio mixing their latest album …And Justice for All. They later remarked how all of the fighting by The Replacements made an impression. Years later, Tommy Stinson encountered Metallica’s James Hetfield at a strip club in Hollywood. “Hetfield is eyeing me, and he says, ‘You were in The Replacements, right? You were in Bearsville, right?’ Then he goes, ‘You guys were f–kin’ nuts. You scared us.”
As the drinking and arguing continued, the band decided to continue recording in Los Angeles but change producers. They paired with Matt Wallace to rerecord the song. Lenny Waronker still felt something was missing. The band didn’t know what else to add, so they adjusted the pitch, speeding it up a few percent. When Waronker heard the song a few days later, he was impressed. Westerberg said, “Lenny couldn’t figure out what we’d done to it, but he loved it. We really felt like we’d pulled one over on the old man.”
The single was the most successful song of The Replacements’ career. It hit No. 1 on the Alternative chart and No. 51 on the pop chart.
A dream too tired to get to
Left a rebel without a clue
Won’t you tell me what I should do?
Oh, if it’s just a lull
Why’m I bored right outta my skull?
Oh yeah, keep me from feeling so dull
And if it’s just a game
Then we’ll break down just in case
Then again, I’ll tell you what we could do
You be me for a while
You be me for a while
And I’ll be you
An ‘Interesting Experience”
In 1989, Tom Petty asked The Replacements to open his American tour. The band continued its practice of self-sabotage. Petty took a particular liking to Westerberg’s songwriting and even gave him the hat he wore in the music video for “I Won’t Back Down.” As the tour continued, The Replacements jeered the audience, criticized Petty’s band the Heartbreakers, and did everything they could to get kicked off the tour. Petty stuck with them through the end of the tour and later laughed about the whole thing, calling it an “interesting experience.”
In 1991, Petty borrowed the phrase “rebel without a clue” for his hit “Into the Great Wide Open.” Westerberg was not pleased. In 1993, he told BAM magazine, “I was bummed when nobody realized. Same thing with these interviews that gave me a hard time. It isn’t the interview that ever affects me or the fact that somebody lifts from me. It’s the fact that a band won’t come forward and say we were an influence on them. Or someone won’t defend us. Or someone won’t say, ‘Yeah, I took the line from him.’ In any of those cases, it would be fine, but it was the fact that it goes without reference or without anyone saying anything. That irritates me a little.”
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Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns
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