Another self-indulgent series of posts, this time on songs that I like and why. The first will be I Will Dare by the Replacements.
I really don’t know when I heard I Will Dare for the first time. It was possibly on the radio or through a book I have. 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. I think it was the latter. A nice habit with this book is just opening it randomly and playing whichever album is on the page. Well, not all the time. I will not play anything by Metallica or ABBA. Sorry!
Maybe I heard the song before on the radio but I do remember opening on the page for Let It Be by the Replacements and thinking… bit pompous, pinching the title from The Beatles! The Replacements were not a band that were big in my life and my only memory was a not very exciting appearance on some MTV award programme. Dana Carvey was the host and he was especially annoying. No fan of Wayne’s World unlike nearly everyone else from my generation!
Older Ears
Whatever, I did not expect much from the album and, have to be honest, it is not one I listen to often! The first song. Well, that was just right. A happy, enlivening guitar riff to start and then lyrics that were actually quite optimistic in spite of their slightly punkish delivery. Not quite in tune which, apparently, was quite the norm for the Replacements. But not jarringly out of tune.
To my older ears, it was the lyrics that swung me. I was around forty and still coming to grips with Multiple Sclerosis. Actually getting to grips with MS is a bit of a constant but… never mind that. The optimism was what I needed at that stage. “Meet me anyplace or anywhere or anytime”. When you cannot quite follow that maxim but will dare. That made me feel right. This was a time when I was undertaking so many cycling challenges and enjoying my fitness as much as possible because I knew it would not last forever.
So I dared.
I Will Dare
I still love that optimism. Now the daring is not some insane cycling challenge but more doing normal stuff like going to the shops or out for a meal. And meeting friends. Meet me anywhere or anytime. I feed off other people. I will dare if they will.
Of course, that optimism is not always there in this life. It is not something I can put on tap. Not everything is under my control and when the disappointment comes it does hit very hard. MS does have so many inputs, even psychological, that it is difficult to keep up remorseless optimism. Sometimes it is not enough to just dare.
Still, the feeling that the song gives me is something special. Not a favourite band at all although reading of their history, especially the tragic fate of guitarist Bob Stinson, gave a wider perspective. The ramshackle live performances sounded especially fun. Our Band Could Be Your Life has a great chapter on the Replacements and is worth a read.
The main thing for me is the optimism. It can lift me up when things are hard work. No magic bullet and I will not pretend that just hearing it makes me feel brilliant. But it does help. I will take that.
Spotify link for the song is here.