“Can't Hardly Wait” by The Replacements

"Can't Hardly Wait" had been kicking around the Replacements' camp for a while before it finally landed on Pleased to Meet Me, their fifth album, in 1987. Paul Westerberg wrote it not long after the Let It Be sessions, and the band took a crack at it for Tim in 1985 before shelving it again.

The version that made it out is the Replacements dressed up for a night on the town. Jim Dickinson produced, John Hampton and Joe Hardy recorded and mixed, and the arrangement brings in horns and strings: Ben Cauley on trumpet, Andrew Love on tenor sax, Steve Douglas on baritone sax, Max Huls on strings. Alex Chilton sits in on guitar alongside Westerberg and Tommy Stinson, Stinson also plays bass and acoustic, Chris Mars drums, and Westerberg adds harmonica to his ragged, big-hearted lead vocal. Those additions caused friction inside the band, but the brass gives the chorus a swaggering lift that turns bar-band yearning into something close to a soul revue.

It was the album's third single, and critics have since hailed it as one of the band's finest songs. A video built from 1987 footage finally surfaced in 2020.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.