The sadly silent Paul Westerberg

Great songwriter, high school dropout, NY Times op-ed author

I’m certainly not alone in saying I miss hearing from Paul Westerberg. He turned 65 on the last day of December last year — you knew he wasn’t going to have some normal birthday. A guy born just before New Year’s Eve, for a good part of his life, he was exactly like a New Year’s Eve reveler. Except it was New Year’s every day.

Drinking, drugging, smashing hotel rooms, dumping cake on record executives, you name it, he did it as the leader, singer and songwriter for that delightfully wild bunch from Minneapolis, The Replacements. They were “the great band that never quite made it” or something like that. But if you got to listen to their music, they made it, all right. And they did it their way. As intentionally screwed up as it might have been.

Westerberg dropped out of school a few months before graduating from the Academy Of Holy Angels. I’m not making that up. That was the actual name of the school. It took a little while but eventually, he found his way into a group that became The Replacements and they released seven albums filled with songs of all possible shapes and descriptions, tunes full of humor, candor, sarcasm, sensitivity, goofiness as well as left-handed, half-assed anthems for the disaffected, disappointed, dejected, denizens of a country that “got no war to name us,” as he wrote in one of his greatest “anthems” —“Bastards Of Young.”

The mysterious Paul Westerberg, formerly of The Replacements,, high school dropout, NY Times op-ed author

Got to see them one magical Valentine’s Day in Ann Arbor, Michigan and wrote about for the newspaper and included the review in my September 5 post. It was a wonderful, revealing show. They were such a terrific band but one, you could tell, was like a time bomb.

After the band dissolved, Westerberg did a handful of solo albums that didn’t do much, contributed songs to soundtracks, did some strange releases under other names, “Grandpaboy” and “Dry Wood Garage,” released a ramshackle movie “Come Feel Me Tremble,” did a brief reunion tour that, judging from videos on YouTube, were pretty cool (He wore numbered T-shirts, counting down the days of the tour) and anarchic, just like old times (wearing a dress, cowboy hats, etc.)

But get this. He ALSO found time to pen a few Op-Ed pieces for, drum roll here, THE NEW YORK TIMES. Bet his high school English teachers were a little taken aback by that. He’s always somebody I think about when I think about the terrific writers that their English teachers at the time did not connect with (Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, etc.. Bob Dylan had, at least one teacher that got him.)

Though he sort of played the role of clown/moron/Mr. Self-Destructive for a good part of his time with The Replacements, it always seemed to me to be a Groucho Marx kind of thing, you know, “I would never want to be a member of a club that would have someone like me for a member.” He is obviously a brilliant guy with an artistic bent, one that alternately puzzles and pleases him, I suspect. And with that guy leading a band, well, you see what they got.

On the one hand, The Replacements wanted success, they signed a record deal, made their bid, in their own wandering way for stardom while at the same time, doing everything they could to give the proverbial finger (and sometimes the real one) to the music industry. And since his solo records, good as they are, didn’t really take off, he’s pretty much gone silent ever since, aside from some strange releases (“49.00, “The I Don’t Cares,” "User 964848511” on SoundCloud). Since then, he’s been quiet, almost as if he’s had enough. Don’t bug me.

I don’t know that he would ever admit it, but I think he feels unappreciated or maybe disrespected or overlooked. Certainly not by his fans; Replacement fans are among the most loyal you can find. But by the industry in general. They were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 but didn’t get in. This year’s inductees were Cher, Peter Frampton, Kool and The Gang and Dionne Warwick. Wow, there are some awesome rock and rollers, don’t you think?

Bob Mehr did a spectacular book on the band, “Trouble Boys” — probably the single-best band biography I’ve ever read. (Also, maybe the saddest, considering the lives these guys led.) Bassist Tommy Stinson is still touring, the band’s guitarist Slim Dunlap recently passed away. Haven’t heard anything from Paul. Which is too bad. We could sure use a songwriting voice like his in this climate, couldn’t we?

One of the things I always loved to do with his songs, particularly his later ones, was come up with my own interpretation. Like with “Dice Behind The Shades” which I wrote about (June 4) and today, this one, “AAA” which was on the Grandpaboy record and is so open-ended, you almost can’t help coming up with your own story. He gives you a lot of room — it’s almost interactive.

The song seems to be a simple Rolling Stones-flavored rocker with elliptical minimalist, repetitive lyrics.

“All I know…Take your diet pills. How many have you got. I’ll kiss you on the cheek. Leave you in the parking lot. I ain’t got anything for anyone any more. I ain’t got anything to say to anyone any more.”

I see it as this, because of the title “AAA,” someone is going to rehab (maybe her, maybe him.) She has her diet pills, he kisses her on the cheek and leaves her in the parking lot. Can’t handle checking her in. (This could also be HIM checking in; he had an alcohol problem.) And the AAA could also mean - anything, anyone, anymore. He can’t explain how he feels…”All I know” the kind of thing a guy would say who either can’t get into the argument or won’t. He’s fed up, moving on, done with relationships. (That might apply to the music business too, come to think of it.)

To me, it’s a great, subtle song, open, of course to interpretation - his specialty. Just enough there to get you thinking, connecting, listening for an explanation that you also know won’t come.

I could be dead wrong, of course. Whattya say, Paul? Drop me a note. I dare you.

HERE’S THE PIECE PAUL WROTE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Simple or Impossible

By Paul Westerberg

May 24, 2013 Measure for Measure: How to write a song and other mysteries.

My last contribution to The Times was on a dead man (actually, Alex Chilton - Thanks, Shawn). I now try to write about a living art.

Painfully aware of the who-what-when-where hocus-pocus that constitutes the journalistic game, I beg the editors’ pardon because illiteracy is part of my stock-in-trade. I write songs where “orange” rhymes with “gorgeous” and “chin” with “gasoline.”

O.K., and now to explain how it’s done. Well, it’s a little like trying to hit a bottle cap with a wire coat hanger. Every day a songwriter rows out into the deep waters in search of his own personal Loch Ness monster. (Just a matter of time, we insist.) Being a weary subscriber to the old inspiration-perspiration theory, I must say that minus the former, you’ll hit a sweaty dead end every time, yet without this purging of what I call “brain vomit,” you’ll never drain the 99 pieces of hooey before one of pure inspiration writes itself for you.

Many a songwriter, when asked how it’s done, will underestimate the talent he was born with and blow his skill for brandishing it out of proportion. My talent (if that’s what we call it) is never, ever doubting goose bumps.
Neil Young insists that if the dog gets up and leaves, whatever you are writing stinks. There is truth here. Phony blues wailing or an ill-suited style attempt will send my own dog running. Yet when it’s so right it’s scary my four-legged audience is guaranteed (though I must say he’s yet to come up with a decent bridge). No, the goose bumps do not lie.

The pros in Nashville have an altogether different approach, similar to modern blues writers: it’s all in the title. “Blues Is My Business” (business is good), for instance, or “18 Wheels and a Sore Behind.” They may make good songs, but rarely do they make your skin crawl. Nobody gets married to a clever song, let alone falls in love to one.

Quick rules of thumb:

-Not from the hippocampus, not gonna fly on campus.
-Aim for the audience’s pockets and you’ll miss their hearts by a mile.
-Even Beethoven plagiarized Handel.

My own creed is “It’s simple or impossible.” To date I’ve written more than 1,000 impossibles. Note that I didn’t say “impossibilities” — incorrect grammar is highly useful. I would never have written a song called “Dis-satisfied.”

Allen Ginsberg said, “first thought, best thought.” This has helped innumerable times when my mind is spinning out of control with ideas.

So, fittingly, after I first sat down and unflinchingly dashed off several pages on the art of the song, on reading it back, panic set in. I had just stolen the entire whack from a book written by Jimmy Webb! Rushing to the bookcase to confirm my fears, I smiled as I realized the book had been digested, cursed and thrown out.

Egotistical thieves all of us. Or make that “thiefs.”

Paul Westerberg, the former lead singer, guitarist and songwriter for The Replacements, has released nearly a dozen solo albums.

HERE IS “AAA” — What do you hear?