Replacements, "Alex Chilton" (1987)

(listen)

A lot of time gone by since I'd had occasion to give this one-time staple of the late '80s another listen, and something about it didn't sound exactly right. I thought at first it was the tempo, seemed rushed, but according to Scott Miller in his indispensable Music: What Happened?, "the CD mastering ... sounds like someone lost the thread of a grand compression plan." He swears by the vinyl version. Sure enough, the original music video I turned up sounds more like it. It's a gushing fan letter before it is anything else, by design, and interestingly not only Paul Westerberg but also Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars get songwriting credit. It is thus so much a group effort it is practically heartwarming. If they can't help themselves with the title, they play it more coy in the song itself. Westerberg blurs the name-checking so it doesn't exactly jump out, but there's no mistaking the sentiment in the chorus: "I'm in love with that song." It's perfect. It's exactly the point—the love, not the song. Which song? Any song—this song even. That's up to you, and a good part of what makes this work. It also sounds more like a Replacements than an Alex Chilton song, another nice point. When I manage to stop thinking and parsing so much, however, and let it play as something that wells up and pricks insistently at one's ears, then it really starts to become apparent what they have managed here. It's a song about being in love with music, admirably overcoming any tendency toward striking the pose of disaffection, and simply giving in to the pleasures of a good song.