...I guess that's where I'm from

Having grown tired of my own songs, I spent the greater part of tonight learning, re-learning and playing Replacements tunes. I had already lionized these songs as classics (the 'Mats are one of my favorite all-time bands), and it turns out they're even more fun to play than they are to listen to. It's impossible to overstate what a creative songwriter Westerberg was and is; his songs come alive behind the guitar. As I fumbled my way through the melancholy bar ballad "Here Comes a Regular", I was reminded of everything I love about this band: the rough edges, the raucous attitude, the lore surrounding their early live shows. Ultimately, though, it was the unmatched plainspoken melodicism of Westerberg that made the band so endearing. This guy is a tunesmith on par with anyone, and the naked honesty of his lyrics and delivery made these great songs even better. His voice cracks as he sings the tail end of these lines:

Everybody wants to be someone's here/someone's gonna show up, never fear

...and the effect is nothing short of staggering. You can feel the song itself in his voice, the overwhelming solitude of last call, the melancholy lurking under the surface, the underlying, desperatate loneliness that drives people to the bar in the first place. Westerberg - along with Dr. Frank, Tom Waits, and Rhett Miller - is one of only a handful of songwriters whose songs I can relate to better than my own.