When God was giving out self-confidence, where the hell was Paul Westerberg? Out buying beer? For someone so blessed with songwriting ability, the singer-guitarist seems unduly consumed with doubt about his own worth and that of the Replacements, his merry band of Minneapolis rock & roll idiot savants. "One more
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chance to get it all wrong ... one more chance to get it half-right," he bawled desperately in the semiautobiographical blitzkrieg "We're Comin' Out," on the group's 1984 album
Let It Be.The equally raucous "I Don't Know," on Pleased to Meet Me, the Replacements' fifth full-length platter, is Westerberg's latest ode to his own uncertainty. "One foot in the door/The other foot in the gutter," he sings in his trademark rasp against the crude Stonesy gallop of drummer Chris Mars and bassist Tommy Stinson. While Mars and Stinson whine, "I don't know," like a stoned Greek chorus over the baritone sax of guest Steve Douglas, Westerberg details the tragicomic hopelessness of his dilemma and that of his vagabond band ("Our lawyer's on the phone.... What did we do now?"). Too talented to play the fool, disgusted with showbiz protocol, he dreads the very success his undeniable gifts can bring. "The sweet smell that they adore/Well, I think I'd rather smother," Westerberg snarls defiantly in the chorus. But near the end, when he asks, "Whatcha gonna do with your life?" a barely audible voice replies, with dreary resignation, "Nothin'."
Pleased to Meet Me, like nearly everything in Westerberg's oeuvre, is about not fitting in, about square pegs surrounded by nothing but round holes. What distinguishes Westerberg from the misfits populating his songs is his uncanny ability to speak for the tonguetied, articulating their aspirations and insecurities with intuitive sensitivity, boozy whimsy and straight street talk – leavened with a little poetic license. As a lyricist, he is fond of the hilariously surreal (in "Can't Hardly Wait," he sings, "Jesus rides beside me/He never buys any smokes"), and he has a knack for dramatically potent non sequiturs (in "Shooting Dirty Pool," he delivers the acidic put-down "You're the coolest guy I ever have smelled"). As a melodist, he revels in a kind of perverted pop classicism, hanging his spiritual tensions and mischievous lyrics on offbeat hooks and change-up choruses like some grungy offspring of Randy Newman and Elton John; meanwhile, the band's guitar-drums gunfire threatens to turn your brain to tapioca.
The result is an album alive with the crackle of conflicting emotions and kamikaze rock & roll fire. Nowhere on Pleased to Meet Me is that tortured vibrancy more evident than in "The Ledge," a powerful study of teen suicide set to an urgent beat and death-knell guitar arpeggios. Westerberg makes no excuses here, no accusations. Instead, there is a haunting clarity in the face of eternal darkness, sympathy not just for the poor devil on the ledge
