10. Replacements, "Unsatisfied" (1984)

(listen)

The Replacements seemed vaguely comical at the time for their sundry vainglorious pretensions to rock immortality. Oh, hell, they were hilarious—they named the album this comes from Let it Be, and included a KISS cover on it as well as this quasi-defiant gesture in the direction of the theme that broke the Stones wide open in their time. It was a good joke, and still is today, but listen close and it's apparent that songwriter Paul Westerberg anyway was playing it for laughs not least as purposeful deflection of his deepest, fondest desires. Ambitions this big are hard to face up to in cold light of day, let alone own plainly as such. But the modesty and bashful toe-kicking was just another of their manifold charms as well. "Unsatisfied" is as big as nations. The Stones sound positively peevish by comparison. It thunders with a kind of power to make mortals tremble as it articulates the wracking emotional frustrations simply of being born into the world. "Look me in the eye and tell me that I'm satisfied" unfolds and unpacks all the way to distant horizons. Once again I have had some trouble over the long years penetrating the densely constructed walls of mythos and adoration and worshiping overstatement thrown up by fans—the loss is entirely mine, I know this—but "Unsatisfied" has always, always got through. If he had never done anything but this Westerberg would have made his bones as one of the great rock vocalists and one of its great songwriters, and this is certainly as good a place as any to hear what brooding, powerful, deeply felt music these self-conscious misfit artistes of the shambolic were capable of when they tuned up and got over themselves and actually started playing together.