Day After Day #15: Bastards of Young

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Bastards of Young

In the fall of 1985, I was a college freshman. There was a lot being thrown at me, namely because I foolishly thought it was a good idea to be a chemical engineering student. I was quickly disabused of that notion after a few months of calculus, chemistry and physics courses. Meanwhile, I was making new friends, drinking a lot of beer and navigating life as an 18-year-old. 

Naturally, I was clueless about a lot of things. One of those things was the music of the Replacements. They weren't getting played on any of the rock radio stations that I listened to, so I had no idea that their fourth album Tim came out on September 18, three days before my birthday. Of course, plenty of other people were Mats fans. This was their major label debut for Sire, but their previous three releases had been getting critical acclaim as their sound evolved from snotty punk to a ragged and raw rock sound that echoed the Stones, Faces and Big Star as much as it did the Ramones or the Damned. I jumped on the bandwagon with their next album, 1987's Pleased to Meet Me, when "Alex Chilton" started getting some mainstream radio play. 

As for Tim, it was one classic after another: "Hold My Life," "Kiss Me on the Bus," "Waitress in the Sky," "Swingin' Party," "Left of the Dial," "Here Comes a Regular" So many great songs. But the one that captured the angst of a generation was "Bastards of Young." Singer Paul Westerberg wrote it as much about his sister leaving their hometown of Minneapolis in search of success as it was about feeling alienated about life in general. Some have called it a Generation X anthem and it's hard to argue otherwise. Right from the start, the mission statement is clear: "God, what a mess, on the ladder of success/Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung/Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled/It beats pickin' cotton and waitin' to be forgotten/Wait on the sons of no one, bastards of young."

The "slacker" descriptor for Gen X didn't really come along until the '90s, but "Bastards of Young" sums it up pretty well (even though Westerberg is technically a Baby Boomer). In the 80s, the Boomers were all about wealth accumulation and the Gen Xers, at least at that time, were less motivated to follow in their footsteps. Certainly the Replacements didn't chase the almighty dollar, even as they signed with a major. In the great band bio Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements, author Bob Mehr writes about how the band continually sabotaged their own success. Repeatedly when they were on the verge of breaking through, Westerberg and crew would rebel by playing intentionally bad shows or getting too drunk to play, or both. 

On this day in 1986, the Mats played on Saturday Night Live, which usually results in a record sales boost and increased attention for musical acts. But in classic Replacements fashion, the band spent the day drinking with host Harry Dean Stanton, then cranked their amps louder than the show wanted while playing "Bastards of Young." To compound matters, during the song Westerberg was caught on mic shouting "Come on, fucker!" to guitarist Bob Stinson. They later all switched clothes and played "Kiss Me On the Bus" while totally drunk. SNL producer Lorne Michaels was outraged and banned the group from playing the show ever again. Westerberg did play on SNL as a solo artist in 1993.

Bob Stinson was kicked out the band later in 1986 and Pleased to Meet Me was recorded as a trio, with Slim Dunlap joining soon afterward. The album was critically acclaimed but only reached #131 on the Billboard album chart. The next two albums, Don't Tell a Soul and All Shook Down, veer toward Americana and more mainstream sounds, but never got the band over the hump and by 1991, the Replacements split up. Westerberg went solo and bassist Tommy Stinson forged on with the bands Bash & Pop and Perfect. There was a reunion from 2012-2015, with an EP and a handful of shows, but by June 2015, they were done.

Last year, the Replacements released a reissue of Tim called the Let It Bleed Edition, featuring a new mix of the album by producer Ed Stasium. Although some fans argued the original was better, I dug the new, fuller sound of the reissue. 

Generation X is old now, as are the surviving Replacements. But we're all still bastards of young.