Comments on: Sevens :: The Replacements, Can’t Hardly Wait

By: For Ryan 2009 « Donkey Attack

For Ryan 2009 « Donkey Attack — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:18:59 +0000

[...] The original is cracking too. You can read all about the various versions of this song over on aquarium drunkard [...]

By: Andy

Andy — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:52:37 +0000

Doesn’t the PTMM version fit well with the album cover – the legit “corporate” arm shaking the frayed “punk” arm? I’ll venture an opinion:the Tim version would have weighted that album down with a little too much earnest longing. I mean, can you imagine “Can’t Hardly Wait” (suicidal version), into “Left of the Dial,” into “Little Mascara,” into “Here Comes a Regular?” 3 songs in a row like that are great, monumental, still maybe my favorite 3 songs in a row to end an album. Add “Can’t Hardly Wait,” and you’d start to feel like maybe it was just a bit too much. Just my opinion.

By: Zohar

Zohar — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:15:14 +0000

I once heard Mojo Nixon cover this song live

By: Jim Smith

Jim Smith — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:10:50 +0000

Bob Stinson was the Replacements….they died when he did.

By: Chris Steller

Chris Steller — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:45:29 +0000

Gotta go with the Shit Hits the Fans version too. That’s how I remember the song sounding for years before it hit vinyl.

The crummy water tower from the earlier version got revived in the lyrics to the recent Hold Steady song “Constructive Summer”

By: Jordan

Jordan — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:04:52 +0000

Fantastic song, everyone seems to agree.
The “air shaft” version has long been my favorite version for its somewhat emotional impact when listened to in comparison to the others.
The impact for me comes from the lyrics and the atmosphere which seems to sound somewhat lonely and bare bones. I do leave the others respectively, but they lack the imtimacy of this version.

For what it’s worth, I once read that the tune was originally a suicide based song, and that by the time they did it on PTMM, it was decided to somewhat change the lyrics to make them less morbid – - I have no idea if this is at all true, but it does add to the alurement of the song.

Also, the “air shaft” version has one of the boys yelling in the background “I can’t wai-hate” following Paul’s gritty howl – - gives me chills.

By: Aquarium Drunkard: Music Blog » Jim Dickinson :: Nov. 15, 1941 - Aug. 15, 2009

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:50:25 +0000

[...] that Dickinson would pass at the end of a week we spent discussing one of his most popular works – producing the Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me – on this very blog. There are those of us – myself [...]

By: godihateyourband

godihateyourband — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:03:58 +0000

no one’s bringing up my favorite version. the original from the let it be tour featured on the cassette only twin tone release “the shit hits the fans”. for anyone who saw em live, that encapsulated the group.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:26:21 +0000

The was also a version on the 7″ release of CHW that was remixed by Bob Clearmountain. I always liked it and I had hoped it would make it onto the PTMM reissue. Sadly, twas not to be.

By: paul minor

paul minor — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:10:13 +0000

I met Josh Freese once, the drummer from Westerberg’s SNL appearance, and asked him what he said during the gap at the end of “CHW” when he makes Westerberg crack up. He said, “Burt Reynolds.” The punchline to an inside joke apparently.

By: Esoth

Esoth — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:29:09 +0000

Great song from a great band. Its worthy of the attention here given. I like all the versions, but maybe the PTMM official version best. I think there is a bias against it among loyalists because it marks the Replacements at their most “professional” and polished. A glimpse of what they might have been if they’d have been able to keep it together longer (if ever they really wanted to do so).

Don’t get me wrong, I loved their live performances and appreciate the quality of their don’t give a shit attitude and the way it melded into their lyrics and playing. . . . sometimes, at any rate. But even in terms of their live playing, there is a tendency for fans to hold drunken debacles closest to their hearts and to ignore those nights when they were on their form professionally. Even in those cases, they had a tendency to veer toward the guardrails and squeeze off sparks just for the hell of it, and you were never far away one or all of them chucking it. What gets wierd, and what must have gotten wierd for the boys, was this expectation that arose — this waiting and anticipating in fans for their acting up. There are frequently undercurrents of anger in their live playing, which feels somehow distinct from any overt anger written or played into the songs, and I wonder if it wasn’t related to the loop closing in on them — the music industry, promoters, etc., wanting them to toe the line, their reacting in a defiantly childish way, but then being too egged on it by the fans, so that became just another pavlovian feedback trap. Still, with all of this maybe going on, they had something sometimes, right their in the palms of their hands and it remains thrilling and alive all these years later.

By: DT

DT — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:02:02 +0000

I come down torn. I love the Tim version with Bob for what Bob brings to it – and which may be the last visible remnants of a guitar-playing style that defined the decade to come. IMHO, Bob Stinson had more influence on the early 90s “rebirth” of rock than any other guitarist.

But while I love the Tim version for its reckless and ragged heart, I am simply in love with the PTMM lyrics. That opening line that you mentioned, “I’ll write you a letter tomorrow; tonight I can’t hold a pen” to me speaks to every ounce of Paul’s supreme songwriter talent.

So I’ll take both, if I may. May I?

And also a version I saw them do toward the end of their run in a staggeringly good concert at the Springfield Paramount Theatre in February 1991, where at the cold break Paul just began laughing in the silence, and soon Tommy, Slim, and Steve joined in. It was sloppy, it was memorable, it was genuine, and it was so very, VERY the ‘Mats.

By: Hogan

Hogan — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:02:57 +0000

JTE has a version of the song on Daytrotter that I like better than the studio version from Midnight at The Movies. Definitely worth the download.

By: Stax

Stax — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 02:46:03 +0000

I think both the Tim version of CHW and the album version are the flipsides to a very amazing piece of rock n’ roll currency. There’s an immediacy on the Tim version that is absent from the album version…a desperation. The album version feels as though the ‘Mats have crashed a party they weren’t invited to; the horns and strings made it seem as though these punk kids might have crawled out of the gutter and cleaned themselves off if it weren’t for their own attempts to sabotage their chances. While the song represented them at their most “established” and “mainstream” up to that point it also represented them at their most “punk rock.” They chose to defy all expectations of them from both sides. Thumbing their noses at the industrial moguls and Top 40 radio DJ’s while flipping the bird to the mohawked little punkers waiting for Westerberg to rewrite Kids Don’t Follow for the 10th time. I don’t think there’s any version of CHW you can go wrong with. Which is what makes it a timeless song and a true classic. Barbara Streisand or Burt Bacharach could sing it and it would still be an amazing song. That’s the sign of something truly special.

By: 9GiantSteps · More on loving music: Can’t Hardly Wait

9GiantSteps · More on loving music: Can’t Hardly Wait — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:52:22 +0000

[...] AD recently did an amazing piece on one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands: The Replacements’ “I Can’t Hardly Wait. [...]