#96 "Hey You" by Tommy Stinson

"Hey You" is from former Replacements' bassist and Paul Westerberg partner-in-crime Tommy Stinson's first solo record, "Village Gorilla Head." Now I love PW and The Replacements. Anyone reading this blog knows that, but I'm not the guy who thinks that all of the separate recordings from the individual members of a band are worth buying. What's the old saying: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts"? In a lot of cases, the spin-off records just don't work out. In this case, however, it was pretty good.

I wasn't too interested when I heard that Tommy Stinson had a solo album. Well, after I read that Paul Westerberg had nothing to do with it, I wasn't. Tommy is apparently on some kind of million dollar retainer to play with Axl Rose and the newest incarnation of Guns-n-Roses whenever he comes a-calling, so I just kind of thought this album wouldn't be much. I mean... did you hear Chinese Democracy? I kept reading good review after good review for VGH, however, so I decided to check it out. It's got some really good stuff on it.

"Hey You" is definitely my favorite song on "Village Gorilla Head." The whole album is sort of this collage of sounds. You've got some punk stuff, some electronic stuff, some acoustic stuff... a little of everything Tommy's been around in his career. "Hey You" starts with some simple acoustic strumming. I like how the basic melody comes out on one side, and a slightly different one accompanies it on the other end. I've never been able to do that in my own music. It always ends up sounding off-beat. I need to listen to more of The Rolling Stones to figure that one out. Then another guitar lead melody comes in and then this kind of electronic drum beat shows up. I just think it's kind of cool. The whole song is like that. You can kind of listen to the layers of tracks all built up around the basic tune. It's great. I can't say I entirely understand the words. They seem to be about the world kind of being a bunch of crap, but that the speaker isn't willing to wait around for anyone to fix it. On that notion, I like the sense of defiance there. I like the drums in the chorus a lot too, but my favorite lines come in the bridge when Tommy sings "I ain't waitin' for proof. I ain't waitin' for the future. I've seen too many signs now and every one was wrong." That part always really strikes me. He sings it wonderfully with a lot of passion and aching in his voice. You can identify with the "tired of these false prophets... false fix-alls that we're always being sold on" idea.

In the end, this is one of those songs on my blog that I doubt anyone has ever heard, but I hope they'll give a chance.

*** The wonderful picture of Tommy at the top of this post was taken from the website of photographer Michael Wilson. To see more of his gorgeous photos, go to
www.michaelwilsonphotographer.com.

"Hey You" is from the album "Village Gorilla Head." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.