I haven’t heard “14 Songs” in years, so I can only dredge up memories of initially thinking it should have been called “14 Songs, Including 3 Decent Ones and 11 Crappy Ones,” or something to that effect, but then seeing PW tour that record and learning to love about half the songs on it. Pretty sure I don’t own it, though. It’s my favorite of Westerberg’s solo records by a significant margin, though sadly that isn’t saying much.

(I have to interrupt momentarily to say that Patty Griffin’s “Useless Desires,” which has been an object of my obsession for the last few months, just came up on the iPod, and I just want to say, even if I’ve said it before, that I particularly love the line “Weekend Edition has this town way overrated.”)

I meant to mention “Never Mind,” especially since my iPod has played it twice in the last week (and the iPod almost never plays the Mats…though it also coughed up “I Will Dare” today; obviously it knew I’d been discussing the song). I love that song. To compensate for omitting it, I’ll tell a little story about it, even though it’s not my story to tell: Westerberg was married to his first wife when that record came out; in fact, they hadn’t been married for very long then. Longtime Twin Cities rock crit and all-around great guy Jim Walsh, who’s been friends with PW since high school or maybe before, was talking to him about the song when he first heard it, and told him how, as a recently married guy himself, he totally related to the song and how well it captured the aftermath of a fight with your spouse. I guess Jim went on about this at some length, and finally Paul looked at him a little strangely and told him that the song wasn’t about marriage at all; it was about Bob, and the experience of firing Bob from the band.

(Somewhat typically for Paul, and maybe for most Minnesotan songwriters, the song is a lot more emotional than the actual firing was, at least from what I’ve heard about how that went. But now I’m getting beyond hearsay. The Jim Walsh anecdote is hearsay, but I did hear it directly from him; any tales of Bob’s firing that I’ve heard are second-hand at best and therefore not mine to tell.)

FWIW, I think the five good songs on PTMM (IOU/Valentine/Alex Chilton/Can’t Hardly Wait/Nevermind (which you didn’t mention, but without which basically there’d be no Nirvana) are as good as any he ever wrote…the pop/rock, sensitive/snotty all perfectly balanced and firing on all pistons.

(Seen Your Video — lyrics kinda dumb-but-heartfelt, but the instrumental music is as beautiful as anything they ever played, no?)

So you don’t think “Seen Your Video” is filler? Most people seem to, though I’ve always loved that one myself. And “Black Diamond” isn’t exactly filler, but it’s another one where the joke has worn a little thin over the years. I don’t skip it (or any other “Let It Be” track) when I play the record, but I don’t pay much attention to it either.

I don’t think I can make a call on which record has the higher high points. “Let It Be” has the advantage of having “I Will Dare,” which is still and will likely always be my favorite song in the world, and the one song that, in abstract as well as measurable ways, most literally “changed my life.” So I’m totally incapable of objectivity there. I do think there might be more high points on “Tim,” though.

(And FWIW, it’s unusual, or was back then, for Paul to write a song about one specific person; he used to say that most of his songs had bits of several different people in them. He also always insisted that “Within Your Reach” wasn’t about anyone, which I think makes it all the more powerful, in a way; the ability to conjure up that depth of emotion purely from your imagination is pretty impressive.)

“Pleased to Meet Me” has high points? Erm, for a more serious answer…even though I’m firmly in the “the original version of ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ was far better than the ‘PTMM’ version,” it’s still an all-time great song, and I’d rank it near but not quite at the level of the highest high points from “Tim” and “Let It Be.” “Alex Chilton” would be maybe a level below that. There are a couple of songs on that record that have strong personal meaning for me, one in a positive way, the other in a negative way. “I.O.U.” is the negative one; it was directed at someone who truly didn’t deserve any of the nastiness in that song, and I never, ever listen to it. The V-Roys covered it and redeemed it for me a little, but I still can’t and won’t listen to the Mats version. “Valentine” is the positive one, but the reason for my attachment to that song is something I won’t go into here. And the rest of the record? Not even close to the highs of previous records, IMO. “Nightclub Jitters” is excellent, “Red Red Wine” is fun, but I could live without hearing most of the rest of that record again. Which is something that I didn’t realize until I looked at the track listing just now, but there it is.

As for the twin “peaks” of Gary & Tommy…I never thought of either song as filler — they are both too funny, too exuberant. I wouldn’t play either too often on purpose now, probably, but it’s not the songs’ fault that I’m not 22 anymore. Still, even back then, Gary always seemed gut-wrenchingly sad to me, pretty much the same song as Sixteen Blue as seen, er, a little later in the evening. And Tommy (being ostensibly about Tommy) is part of the long line of self-referential/us-against-the-world stuff, which is a big part of their appeal. I don’t think Let It Be has any filler, not one note. (Later songs, like Lay it Down Clown or (ugh!) The Ledge were true filler, false, crafty, charmless.) But you could make the sort-of opposite argument that Tim’s high points were higher than Let It Be’s.

PS: Then where would you rate the really high points from Pleased to Meet Me?

Philip, Lynn Blakey (I wasn’t sure about the “e” at the end, but I just checked, and there isn’t one) is an Athens, GA-based musician who’s been in various lesser-known bands since forever; at the time that “Tim” came out, I think she was in Let’s Active, but she might have been in Oh OK (with Michael Stipe’s sister Linda; they’re a close-knit bunch down there in Athens, I guess). I’m not sure if her most recent band, Gloryfountain, is still around, but she’s also in Tres Chicas with the lovely Caitlin Cary, as well as Tonya Lamm from Hazeldine. They put out a record last year called “Sweetwater” that’s pretty swell.

And yeah, I think of “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” as filler, pretty much. It was funny—and more important, captured some of their goofiness in an entertaining rather than obnoxious way—the first 7500 times I heard it, but over the years, I’ve come to think of it as sort of a novelty song. Maybe “Gary’s Got a Boner” would be a better example, but that one at least sort of rocks…

(Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out — filler????)

Knitting blogs also helped me stick with knitting when I wanted to give up—there are countless ones, and far too many good ones for me to read them all, but there are a handful that I’m devoted to. And if you find yourself getting obsessed, as you very well may—it seems to happen to most knitters—there’s a knitting community on Live Journal (a site I would not otherwise frequent, since it’s mainly directed at teenagers and early-twentysomethings) that is endlessly helpful, informative, and inspiring. I can spend whole evenings reading it.

Oh yeah, you asked a question. I’m knitting a hood/scarf thingy for myself from a free pattern on the Lion Brand Yarn site, because I like those better than wearing a separate hat and scarf; I’m knitting the first of two blankets for the Siamese Rescue shelter blanket project, using a pattern of my own design (my first!); and then I’m knitting two things that I won’t discuss yet because they are little gifts, including one for a person who has been known to read this blog. After that, I’m going to start the sweater I mentioned a few posts back, and another shelter blanket. I just need to have more hours in the day so that I can knit more…

I’m sorry I only got to see the Replacements once, on what I guess was their last tour. It was in 1990 at the University of Alabama’s Foster Auditorium ( better known as the location of George Wallace’s schoolhouse door stand, but during the 80s and early 90s the venue for “indie” or “alt” type campus-sponsored concerts). It was a good show, although I’m sure I wouldn’t think so if I’d also seen them earlier on. Also fun was afterwards at the Ivory Tusk (strange combination of frat/alt bar) watching Tommy Stinson—in full makeup—charm all the bow-heads.

What are you knitting? I know you’ve mentioned a couple of things in previous posts, but I can’t recall four. I’ve just taken up knitting. I figured it would be a good skill to cultivate now that I will actually need sweaters. For practice, I’m knitting just about everyone in my family a scarf for Christmas; I’m sure they will all be thrilled. After Christmas, I plan to try a sweater. I’m amazed that I have kept at this long enough to complete a project. Usually I lose interest if I don’t master something immediately (and I don’t master immediately anything requiring manual dexterity). A very bad quality, but I’m trying to overcome it.