This one is off of their last studio album All Shook Down. I was going to conclude with this one having one off of their studio albums but there is one more coming next week.
This is not my favorite off the album but it did have a commercial sound for that time and it’s something that I thought would have charted in the Billboard 100. Merry Go Round did peak at #1 on the alternative charts. The album peaked at #69 in the Billboard Album Chart in 1990.
“Merry Go Round” was written about the lives of Westerberg and his sister Mary (“They ignored me with a smile, you as a child”).
The band went to Los Angeles to make a video for Merry Go Round. With Westerberg’s okay, Warner Bros. hired Bob Dylan’s twenty-three-year-old son Jesse Dylan, who was just starting to direct.
It was shot in black and white and later edited to include some colorful inserts. From the opening moments, with a stone-faced Westerberg staring blankly into the camera, the video lacked the fun that had marked some of their other clips. Paul and Tommy managed a few smiles, and Slim played along gamely. The drummer Chris Mars, miming to Charley Drayton’s drum track, was understandably less than enthused.
Merry Go Round
Hush was the first word you were taught
And they watched you wear
The clothes they claimed that they bought
They brought you down
To watch the merry-go around
In fall, you knew how much it cost
A trouble doll
Around your neck when you lost
You wouldn’t make a sound
But I could hear your little heart pound
And I watched your feet slip off the ground
Merry go round in dreams
Writes ’em down, it seems
When she sleeps, she’s free
Merry go round in dreams
You wake to another day and find
The wind’s blowing out of key with your sky
Only you can see
And the rain dancing in the night
Everybody stands around in delight
Merry go round in dreams
Writes ’em down, it seems
When she sleeps, she’s free
Merry go round in dreams
And everybody thinks she’s sick
She’s got two worlds she can pick
And she’s sad
Hush is the only word you know
And I stopped listening long ago
They ignored me with a smile
You as a child
But the trouble doll hears your heart pound
And your feet they say goodbye to the ground
Merry go round in dreams
Writes ’em down, it seems
When she sleeps, she’s free
Merry go round in dreams
Merry go round in dreams
Merry go round in me
Merry go round
Round and round in me
Merry go round
Round and round in me
Mary Lucia is a disk jockey in the Twin Cities.
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Yep she is his sister… wonder if she plays him?
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Not a bad tune but doesn’t really jump out at me either. Video’s interesting though, seems to have visual nods to everyone from Echo & the Bunnymen to both Bob Mould and Husker Du in it.
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Next weeks I like better but this one is alright. It doesn’t have the rawness of their older ones.
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I like All Shook Down – it’s my fourth favourite Mats album after the big three. It’s a shame they were winding down when the grunge sound they helped inspire was about to get big. Westerberg was all over 1990s sitcoms for some reason – he’s on the soundtracks for Friends and Melrose Place.
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Whats a good starting point to check these guys out Max.
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I have one more off of their “greatest hits” next week….
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I like this one to. It’s forever stuck in my head.
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