You always hurt the one you love

Paul Westerberg, guitars and Uncle Bob Dylan

Just about midway through Bob Mehr’s terrific “Trouble Boys: The True Story of The Replacements,” once again, a revealing moment pops through.

As Mehr describes it, “A few days later, midshow, Westerberg was playing his favorite guitar, another beautiful-sounding Gibson 335. Suddenly, he grabbed it by the body and slammed the neck down on the amplifier and splintered it completely. Afterwards, soundman Brendan McCabe approached him in shock. “Paul, what the hell did you do that for? How could you wreck that guitar? You loved that thing.”

“Well, that’s the difference between me and you, Brendan,” he told him. “You cherish things that you love. Me? I destroy ‘em.”

If you’ve seen the chaotic, rough-and-tumble, all-hell-breaks-loose video for “Everything Goes Wrong,” the absolutely stone-rockin’ song that concludes the “Come Feel Me Tremble” DVD, no further explanation is necessary. Or helpful.

Paul Westerberg slashing out - literally - a great rocker in his Edina, Minnesota basement.

It’s just him. On guitar. On drums. On breaking a mirror. Causing all sorts of disruption down there. You wonder if he has any neighbors? If they’re smart enough - and tolerant - to just friggin’ listen? And don’t miss that little clip at the end from one of his record store shows where he talks about security being brought in “for YOUR protection.” I don’t think he was kidding.

Re-reading through Mehr’s remarkably well-researched book, there are moments that simultaneously make you laugh and wince at the same time. Westerberg comes across as a troubled soul but one with such a keen intelligence that it seems as though it pisses him off.

There are so many scalding quotes and comments throughout the book, you could see why the guys in his bands were in awe of his talent and found him difficult to deal with. It always seemed to feel as if he was in another place, didn’t want to deal with them, their complaints, contributions, comments. Yet he loved the noise, their collective disruption, didn’t he?

On the 1997 “All For Nothing/Nothing For All” Replacements’ compilation album, you had to love their ragged-beyond-belief cover of Bob Dylan’s classic “Like A Rolling Stone” which Paul re-tools as “Like A Rolling Pin.”

“Hey, Bob,” he laughs, “come on in here and play guitar,” and he starts to sing ”Like a rollin’ pin…”

Mehr recounts that moment and also that BOB DYLAN HIMSELF was in Hollywood’s Ocean Way’s front studio, doing overdubs for his “Under The Red Sky” album and heard them. He’d met them earlier, initially thought they were R.E.M., but then, a few days later, here he was, hoodie up, sunglasses on, on the other side of the glass while Westerberg launches into a parody - with improvised lyrics - of perhaps Dylan’s greatest song.

The band, seeing Dylan out there, tried to get Paul to stop but he didn’t. When Westerberg saw Dylan in the control room moments later, “I dropped to my fucking knees, “God, man, I am sorry,” recalled Westerberg. “Nah, man,” Dylan mumbled. “It was cool - it sounded like Hendrix.”

Here’s a songwriter, maybe THE songwriter, from Minnesota, too, someone that Westerberg obviously admired and was influenced by, maybe he’s operating under the influence of some chemicals, maybe not and Paul can’t help but mock him, poke him, show him HE’S a singer, too. He wrote a song in tribute to Alex Chilton, a great singer nobody really heard of. With Bob Dylan, well….

Or maybe it was just the same thing with the Gibson guitar, that violent basement video. You know, the one where “Everything Goes Wrong.”

Paul’s version of “Like A Rolling Pin” with Bob Dylan listening…

Author John Nogowski, who recently celebrated the two-year anniversary of his Substack, has written two books on popular music; “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography”, now in its third edition, and a new volume on Neil Young, due near the end of the year, available for pre-order from McFarland and Co. He’s also written books on baseball - his son is a former major leaguer - “Diamond Duels” and “Last Time Out,” a book on teaching Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn at a minority school and other works. He’s also at work on a book about Bruce Springsteen. There’s lots of reading material (656 posts) at his Substack site and you’re invited to come check them out…