Solid Little Rock Jams

The Replacements - Let It Be(1984)

This album saved my life. Not in the literal sense(though, God, if I never heard it, who knows?), but it's the reason i wake up every morning. I first stumbled upon it in a used bin, amidst a bunch of Peter Gabriel solo albums and 80s David Bowie records, a diamond in the rough.

I can't even begin to remember what kind of person I was before I first heard this album. I wouldn't want to meet him. Whiny, fussy baby. I can't remember any day in particular that was important to me until I first listened to this album, the last album I bought as a teenager. I loved it more in the 3 days I had it as a nineteen year old than I do now. It's brought me to tears, I've listened to it while trashing rooms, hating myself, having sex, staying up all night with friends, shouting ever lyric at the top of my lungs like God's word, vacuuming, eating, drinking, breathing, living. This album is me. I don't ever want to hear anything else again but this album. I don't want to hear people talking, Even now my fingers are typing too loud, drowning out parts of Bob Stinson's whiskey-soaked guitars. I hate it.

Even the album cover, sometimes I wake up and I am that album cover. I'm the bass line to "I Will Dare," I'm Tommy, I'm Gary, I'm Dick, I'm Jane. "Unsatisfied" was the last song I ever played on my short-lived radio show. I remember the first time I heard it driving down Rt. 31 in Batavia, realizing brilliance was washing over my ears, I had to park the car and take it all in. It was the greatest moment of my life. Better than being born. Better than any moment in existence that ever has been or ever will be. No one had ever felt as special as I did at that precise second.

I turned 23 about a half hour ago. I'm listening to it right now. I hope I'm listening to it 20 minutes from now. I hope I'm listening to it 20 years from now, I hope I'm listening to it even after I'm dead. This album has been with me for three years now, the best three years of my life. I'll never be happier.

Go out and buy it, go buy three copies. Listen to it and over and over, let it change your life like it did to me. If it doesn't that's okay, that'll just make it even more special to me. I never really liked fitting in anyway.