We're The Replacements

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A Maxwell's bill advertising a September 21, 1984 show with They Might Be Giants opening for The Replacements
song name We're the Replacements
artist They Might Be Giants
releases Dial-A-Song, Don't Let's Start (EP), Don't Let's Start (Album), Miscellaneous T, Then: The Earlier Years, Selections From Then, Best Of The Early Years, Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants, A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity, 50,000,000 They Might Be Giants Songs Can't Be Wrong
year 1987
first played March 1, 1990 (126 known performances)
run time 1:50
sung by John Linnell; John Flansburgh sings backup


Trivia/Info

  • Also known as "Hi, We're The Replacements"[1], this song pays homage to the American rock band The Replacements, with the lyrics directly mentioning the group's bass guitarist Tommy Stinson. In a 1996 interview with Pitchfork, John Linnell would discuss the inspiration behind the song[2]:
I wrote "Ana Ng" and "We're The Replacements" while crashing at a friend's apartment, Jonathan Gregg, in Manhattan. [...] It was supposed to be this sort of light-hearted, "Hey, Hey, We're The Monkees" type of thing. I was listening to his records and looking at his stuff − and he had a copy of Let It Be by The Replacements, which is what kind of got me going on that song.
We were writing a lot of songs at the time and we were looking for a lot of diverse subjects. I think the idea was [writing] songs from a whole range of perspectives so we weren't doing one particular style of song; I think that was something we were definitely aspiring to do. We had biographical songs, we had personal testimonial songs, and impersonal songs, and starting with a pastiche and working in some other direction. I think [the idea of] "We're The Replacements" was, "Well, here's a completely different idea: we're going to write the theme song for some other contemporary band and have it be sincere but obviously funny." I was kind of trying to strike that note of being irreverent, but on the other hand, we do like The Replacements. So it's not making fun of them. And the band liked the song, so that was meaningful, that they liked it and that they had the kind of sense of humor where they could appreciate [it]. They knew exactly what kind of song it was.
  • John Flansburgh would also confirm the Replacements' appreciation for the song in a 1989 interview[3]: "Paul Westerberg [of the Replacements] actually called Dial-A-Song and he said he liked it."
  • Flansburgh mentioned in the same interview that "We're The Replacements" was about "life on the road in general" and that the Replacements were chosen for the song "as the example, but only because they're such a solid example of a typical touring band."[4] Flansburgh would elaborate on this in an interview at the Barrymore Theatre:
[The song] basically plays on the name, The Replacements. And it's about being in a band, and it uses The Replacements as an example, but it's also about the replaceable nature of being on the road. Like, everywhere where we're playing this week, another band is gonna play next week, so there are all these bands that are kind of marching around in a parallel universe and they never really meet each other. But... I mean, for months we were on the road behind 10,000 Maniacs. We were playing the same cities, and in a lot of cases, the same venues − but just, like, a day before, or a day after. And so... you just come to realize that you have more in common with the death metal band than you ever thought, in terms of where you go. Every hotel you've stayed at, they were there the day before. Every highway you drive down, every truckstop you go in, every... venue you play, every PA guy you meet − they've JUST MET these other people, who you thought you had nothing in common with, and then you realize you're living the same LIFE as [that other band]. So... the denotation of The Replacements is kind of a pun.
We made an EP that had a song on the B-side called "Hi, We're The Replacements". [They Might Be Giants] saw the success of the Replacements and were sort of fascinated by that, so they wrote that song. And I thought if we put "Don't Let's Start" on the A-side and "Hi, We're The Replacements" and a couple of other songs on a 12", then we can actually get on the CMJ charts because the Replacements were number one on CMJ at that point. It worked, and they were actually playing "Hi, We're The Replacements" but the record was called "Don't Let's Start" because that was the A-side. So we got the numbers from the B-side that they were playing, but then we just presented it as like "Hey, look! 'Don't Let's Start' [is] totally happening! You should add it!"


And right at Christmastime, there [was] kind of a lull. None of the big record companies [were] pushing their product at that point; there [was like] a week or two break. And that's where we kind of slipped it in and we got in there during the holidays. And then after Christmas, all the kids took the money to the record stores and bought the first They Might Be Giants album.
"We're the Replacements", a carefree tribute to the now legendary rockers, immediately grabbed the rock media's attention, all the way to MTV, where a VJ made an aside that introduced TMBG as former roadies for the Replacements, creating a groundless urban legend that continues to this day.
  • The band made light of this rumor in a 1988 Spin article, "Nineteen Questions They Might Be Giants are Waiting to Hear." One of the questions is, "If you're not roadies for the Replacements, which band is?"
  • Before the creation of this song, They Might Be Giants had previously opened for the Replacements at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ on September 21, 1984. When asked about memories of performing at Maxwell's in a 2013 Tumblr ask, Flansburgh responded: "Opening for the Replacements was hard to forget".
  • Although initially performed live in its original studio arrangement, the band would begin performing an alternate, slower arrangement of the song that omitted the final refrain. This version was performed live from late-1990 to around 1992, after which the band would return to playing the original arrangement in 1995.

Song Themes

Music, Parties, Puns, Questions, References To Other Songs Or Musicians, Screaming, Transportation

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