“Someone Take the Wheel” by The Replacements

"Someone Take the Wheel" comes from All Shook Down, the Replacements' seventh and final studio album, which Sire put out in September 1990. Paul Westerberg wrote it alone and co-produced it with Scott Litt, who engineered and mixed it too, and it belongs to a record that very nearly wasn't a Replacements album at all: Westerberg had meant it as his solo debut until his management talked him round before recording began.

That history shows in who turned up to play on the album. Session players and journeymen crowd in around the other three members, Westerberg told Musician magazine there were four drummers on the album but no hired guitarists, and bassist Tommy Stinson only joined about a week into the project. Nobody kept clear records of who played on which track, so the exact lineup here is anyone's guess.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.