30 Songs in 30 Days: Day 1 - Your Favorite Song
Brian has bullied me into doing this 30 songs in 30 days list. But I figure that this gives me a nice opportunity to write something about something I love and maybe influence a few other people into feeling the same way about it too.
Day 1 - Your Favorite Song
Wow, this thing really doesn't mess around. "Day 1: out of the thousands of songs that you've heard over the course of your life, CHOOSE ONE, call it the best ever, make it the song that obtusely defines you for the rest of your life, and document it right here for everyone to see! You only get one shot at this! Make it count!"
The Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" is my favorite song. At it's core, the song is about the unknown future, and, somewhere within its lyrics, music, and arrangement, it creates the two prevailing emotions regarding an unforetold path: joy and anxiety.
Right off the bat, the listener is blasted with a rollicking guitar lick that just tumbles out of the speakers and continues throughout the song ad nauseam. For me, when this song pops on, I just have to start humming this jaunty little half melody. Two measures later when the drums kick in and I'm hooked. This song just starts off as fun.
But leave it to good old Paul Westerberg to pull us back down to Earth when he sings, "I'll write you a letter tomorrow/Tonight, I can't hold a pen." There's multiple interpretations to be had by these lines, but they all bring you to the same place. Whether our narrator is procrastinating, drunk, or simply too heart broken (or possibly all 3), he can't seem bring himself to actually face the future. S/he's putting it off for tomorrow. And even then, getting this letter out is still no guarantee: "Someone's got a stamp I can borrow/I promise not to blow the address again." This is just another failed attempt at saying what needs to be said. Paul shows us that these kinds of small obstacles in life are equal parts self-sabotage and plain old bad luck: not having a stamp could equally be either: the narrator's unwillingness to go out and purchase one because, if s/he did, there'd no longer be an excuse to put off writing the dang letter, or the simple bad luck of being too broke to afford one.
The listener is quickly clued in to the the possible reason for said poverty as the narrator reveals that s/he is about to take the stage for some sort of performance. At this point throughout the song, the narrator shifts tone, becoming obviously more optimistic about the inevitable, near future than s/he was about choices that are being saved for a later date in the verses. Ironically, the music underpinning this "prechorus" has a very ominous, open ended feel thanks to the chords kind of aimlessly moving up the scale, coincidentally landing back on the verse riff instead giving us any sort of resolution.
It's strange, but highly effective, the way Paul keeps the tension between joy and anxiety by having the verse lyrics describe a darker mood than the joyous music implies and by leaving the prechorus chords unresolved while the listener is told about the more gratifying aspects of the near future. Pushing and pulling us in the same directions is the tug of war that pops in midway through the song as a moody string section counterpoints fun-loving, bombastic horns.
For me, the only part of this song that seems to be sung/performed in a way to indicate any kind of resolution is the line that ends on that beautiful, single F#m: "I'll be home, when I'm sleeping." And I feel that that is kind of purposeful: the time that a person doesn't have to worry about the possible joy and the unrelenting anxiety of what lies ahead is when that person is asleep. The part of this song that feels resolved, musically, is when the narrator actually feels peaceful, in sleep.
And to wrap it all up, Paul says, "I can't hardly wait." I don't even want to attempt to think about the ramifications of those double negatives! I can't wait? I can hardly wait? I CAN'T HARDLY wait?!? I don't really know what's going on here, but "Can't Hardly Wait" puts me in that space right between past and present, right there amongst some sort of flux between joy and anxiety that kind of feels like what it should feel like to really be living. And I think that's what one's favorite song should do: remind you what it feels like to really be alive.
So that's why the Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" is my favorite song. I hope this song makes you feel an ounce of what it makes me feel. See you on day 2!
P.S. Yes, the 1998 film of the same name starring Ethan Embry took its title from this song.
Day 1 - Your Favorite Song
Wow, this thing really doesn't mess around. "Day 1: out of the thousands of songs that you've heard over the course of your life, CHOOSE ONE, call it the best ever, make it the song that obtusely defines you for the rest of your life, and document it right here for everyone to see! You only get one shot at this! Make it count!"
The Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" is my favorite song. At it's core, the song is about the unknown future, and, somewhere within its lyrics, music, and arrangement, it creates the two prevailing emotions regarding an unforetold path: joy and anxiety.
Right off the bat, the listener is blasted with a rollicking guitar lick that just tumbles out of the speakers and continues throughout the song ad nauseam. For me, when this song pops on, I just have to start humming this jaunty little half melody. Two measures later when the drums kick in and I'm hooked. This song just starts off as fun.
But leave it to good old Paul Westerberg to pull us back down to Earth when he sings, "I'll write you a letter tomorrow/Tonight, I can't hold a pen." There's multiple interpretations to be had by these lines, but they all bring you to the same place. Whether our narrator is procrastinating, drunk, or simply too heart broken (or possibly all 3), he can't seem bring himself to actually face the future. S/he's putting it off for tomorrow. And even then, getting this letter out is still no guarantee: "Someone's got a stamp I can borrow/I promise not to blow the address again." This is just another failed attempt at saying what needs to be said. Paul shows us that these kinds of small obstacles in life are equal parts self-sabotage and plain old bad luck: not having a stamp could equally be either: the narrator's unwillingness to go out and purchase one because, if s/he did, there'd no longer be an excuse to put off writing the dang letter, or the simple bad luck of being too broke to afford one.
The listener is quickly clued in to the the possible reason for said poverty as the narrator reveals that s/he is about to take the stage for some sort of performance. At this point throughout the song, the narrator shifts tone, becoming obviously more optimistic about the inevitable, near future than s/he was about choices that are being saved for a later date in the verses. Ironically, the music underpinning this "prechorus" has a very ominous, open ended feel thanks to the chords kind of aimlessly moving up the scale, coincidentally landing back on the verse riff instead giving us any sort of resolution.
It's strange, but highly effective, the way Paul keeps the tension between joy and anxiety by having the verse lyrics describe a darker mood than the joyous music implies and by leaving the prechorus chords unresolved while the listener is told about the more gratifying aspects of the near future. Pushing and pulling us in the same directions is the tug of war that pops in midway through the song as a moody string section counterpoints fun-loving, bombastic horns.
For me, the only part of this song that seems to be sung/performed in a way to indicate any kind of resolution is the line that ends on that beautiful, single F#m: "I'll be home, when I'm sleeping." And I feel that that is kind of purposeful: the time that a person doesn't have to worry about the possible joy and the unrelenting anxiety of what lies ahead is when that person is asleep. The part of this song that feels resolved, musically, is when the narrator actually feels peaceful, in sleep.
And to wrap it all up, Paul says, "I can't hardly wait." I don't even want to attempt to think about the ramifications of those double negatives! I can't wait? I can hardly wait? I CAN'T HARDLY wait?!? I don't really know what's going on here, but "Can't Hardly Wait" puts me in that space right between past and present, right there amongst some sort of flux between joy and anxiety that kind of feels like what it should feel like to really be living. And I think that's what one's favorite song should do: remind you what it feels like to really be alive.
So that's why the Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" is my favorite song. I hope this song makes you feel an ounce of what it makes me feel. See you on day 2!
Click to viewP.S. Yes, the 1998 film of the same name starring Ethan Embry took its title from this song.