Bastards of Young – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

A Replacements Revival

Thanks, Dave, for asking me to participate. Dave wanted us to pick a band we would like to see reunited based on reality and not bringing people back to life. A lot of bands that I would love to get back together, but most have deceased members, and under his rules, we cannot raise them again. Allman Brothers, The Band, Big Star, and many others where one or a few are alive. I considered The Kinks because Ray and Dave Davies are still alive, along with Mick Avory, the drummer. I also considered REM, CCR, J Geils, and The James Gang. Even if Dave had said we could resurrect people, I still would not pick The Beatles. I’m forever grateful they didn’t try it before Lennon passed. There is no way they would have lived up to people’s expectations.

The Replacements, Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson, and Chris Mars are still doing well. Their lead guitar player, Bob Stinson, passed away in 1995. He was replaced by Slim Dunlap in the ’80s when Bob quit. Slim passed away in 2024. He didn’t tour with them in the teens when they DID reunite because of a stroke he had in 2012.

They reunited in 2012 and started to tour, which lasted until 2015. They sold out huge arenas, made more money, and played in front of more fans than they did in their prime. Although their last show in Chicago drew over 50,000 people in 1991.

They had a penchant for shooting themselves in the foot in the ’80s over and over. Grabbing their new producer and tearing his clothes off and throwing him in the hall, saying the F word on Saturday Night Live and then getting banned, guest hosting a radio show and picking old blues records they knew had cuss words, and getting kicked out of there, and opening up for Tom Petty and breaking in Petty’s dressing room and stealing and wearing his wife’s clothes on stage (they finished the tour though…Petty had a sense of humor), refusing to make videos, knowing that record executives from big labels were coming to watch them and getting drunk playing TV theme songs plus KISS covers all night long. No need to add more things…you get the point.

I’ve heard from people who saw them in their prime. They usually have two things to say about them if they have seen them at least twice. “The best rock and roll band I’ve ever seen or heard” OR “The most drunken display I’ve ever seen” but even when they said that…they said they liked them and they still beat most bands. It does make sense, though. They started off as a punk band and slowly developed into a rock band when Westerberg developed as a songwriter. They had a rebellious spirit to the end.

Personally, I think if they had played the music company game like REM, they could have been popular in the mainstream. They had some of the strongest songs of the 1980s because of Paul Westerberg, and I put his songwriting on the level of Springsteen. Now let’s get into the songs of the band. I think many of their songs rival The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Stones, or anyone you could throw out there. Bastards of Young, Here Comes A Regular, Alex Chilton, Androgynous, Can’t Hardly Wait, I Will Dare, Left Of The Dial, Unsatisfied, Kiss Me on the Bus, Skyway, Color Me Impressed, The Ledge, and so many more. If they had gotten proper airplay, I have no doubt they would have been hits.

Most indie bands were out of touch with the mainstream at the time, and that is the reason they all had such a large fan base. It started to cross over, though in the late eighties or early nineties at last, but by that time…The Replacements were winding down. This is a band I would want to see again, clicking on all cylinders. From the reviews of all of their reunion shows…they were on.

So Paul and Tommy…how about one more go around? Please include some TV Themes and KISS cover songs…just because you can. If you guys are happy…we will be.

…

Replacements – Bastards Of Young

This is my sixth song pick for Hanspostcard’s song draft. The Replacements Bastards Of Young.

I was really happy when I saw Mike’s choice of the Replacements song Can’t Hardly Wait in the draft. I had that one in the back of my mind but had this one ready to go later. I decided to go ahead and get this one in.

I could have picked a more instantly likable song like Skyway, Here Comes a Regular, or Alex Chilton but this song…was a great anthem that kicks you in the shins when it starts. It was recorded in the eighties but it has no giant production…it’s raw and honest about youthful uncertainty and alienation.

I recently visited Aphoristic’s site and he had his top ten songs of the 1980’s. I thought about it and I included this song on my list in the comment section. In popularity would it be there? No… but this is a lost anthem of the eighties that should have been taken up by that generation. Just because a song isn’t heard and embraced by the masses doesn’t mean it isn’t great.

Westerberg’s songwriting in the 1980s rivaled any artist in that decade.

Everyone who knows me… knows I’m not a huge fan of the top 40 in the 1980s but alternative rock is a different story. In my opinion, the two best alternative rock bands to come out of the 80s were The Replacements and R.E.M.

R.E.M played the music business game much more than The Replacements. The Replacements didn’t play at all until the very end. That hurt them on not being heard on the radio or MTV. If it weren’t for their penchant for self-destruction they would have been known more by the masses.

This song was on their album “Tim” released in 1985. Why was the album called Tim? There was no reference to the name on the album. The band’s manager said that he asked Paul Westerberg what the name of the album would be. Paul told him “Tim” and the manager asked why? Paul said “because it’s such a nice name.”

“Tim” was placed 136th on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and 137 in a 2012 revised list. The album peaked at #186 in the Billboard Album Chart in 1986.

Paul Westerberg: “To me, a part of that song is about my sister who felt the need … to be something by going somewhere else. It is sort of the Replacements feeling the same way … not knowing where we fit. It’s our way of reaching a hand out and saying, ‘We are right along with you. We are just as confused.'”

They also played this song on SNL and got banned for life for being drunk and a certain swear word slipping out….supposedly by accident. This is the only video I can find of it. Westerberg eventually appeared on SNL in the 90s as a solo artist. The studio version is the second video.

Bastards of Young

God, what a mess, on the ladder of success
Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung
Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled
It beats pickin’ cotton and waitin’ to be forgotten

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
The daughters and the sons

Clean your baby womb, trash that baby boom
Elvis in the ground, no waitin’ on beer tonight
Income tax deduction, what a hell of a function
It beats pickin’ cotton and waitin’ to be forgotten

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
Not the daughters and the sons

Unwillingness to claim us, ya got no war to name us

The ones who love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones who love us least are the ones we’ll die to please
If it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
Daughters and the sons

Young
Young
Young
Young
Young

Take it, it’s yours
Take it, it’s yours
Take it, it’s yours
Take it, it’s yours
Take it, it’s yours
Take it, it’s yours
Take it, it’s yours
Take it, it’s yours
Take it, it’s yours

Replacements – Bastards Of Young

The ones, love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones, love us least are the ones we’ll die to please
If it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them

This song starts with a raw cool riff and a scream…how much more rock and roll can you get? The lyrics above is what got me into this song in the 80s.

The song was on the album Tim released in 1985. The album was produced by Tommy Ramone. Alex Chilton also helped out with the album.

Why was the album called Tim? There was no reference to the name on the album. The bands manager said that he asked Paul Westerberg what the name of the album would be. Paul told him “Tim” and the manager asked why? Paul said “because it’s such a nice name. “

It was placed 136th on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and 137 in a 2012 revised list. The album peaked at #186 in the Billboard Album Chart in 1986.

“Bastards of Young” was used in the 2020 film The New Mutants during the “party” scene where they are relaxing even though they are still confined.

Paul Westerberg working on the album: “”Writing songs like ‘Androgynous’ and ‘Answering Machine’ wasn’t difficult – presenting them to the group was. I’d been tinkering with stuff like that early on… It was hard getting across the idea we should just put the best songs on the record, even if there wasn’t always a place for Bob to have a hot lead. Bob was the hard one to get to acquiesce. So [Tim] ended up putting the chink in the armor of the idea of us as a four-piece rock band.”

From Songfacts

Fitting with the rebellious nature of The Replacements, this song is about a lost generation. The references to “Elvis” and the “Baby Boom” imply their parents, who see them as nothing more than tax deductions. “Bastard” is a derogatory term for a child born out of wedlock.

Some have speculated that the chorus is actually, “We are the sons of Norway” (somewhat fitting, given the Minnesota birthplace of all members) but, (famously) as no lyric sheet was ever provided by the band, it remains speculation.

The video is a black-and-white, single shot of a stereo system playing the song. He see a guy enter the frame, lie on the couch and smoke a cigarette, but we never see his face. At the end of the clip, he kicks over a speaker and leaves.

Bastards of Young

God, what a mess, on the ladder of success
Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung
Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled
It beats pickin’ cotton and waitin’ to be forgotten

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
The daughters and the sons

Clean your baby womb, trash that baby boom
Elvis in the ground, there’ll ain’t no beer tonight
Income tax deduction, what a hell of a function
It beats pickin’ cotton or waitin’ to be forgotten

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
Now the daughters and the sons

Unwillingness to claim us, ya got no war to name us

The ones, love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones, love us least are the ones we’ll die to please
If it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them

We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
Daughters and the sons

Young, young, young, young

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_(The_Replacements_album)#:~:text=Tim%20is%20the%20fourth%20studio,towards%20the%20end%20of%201986.