Don’t Tell a Soul (

I never saw The Replacements live. And I don’t think their breakup was on my radar at the time it happened, either.

But I remember sitting in a dark car, age 16 or 17, after working at my crappy movie theater job in South Carolina, in the summer when the nights were just as hot as the days, and listening to Don’t Tell a Soul. And I remember it being the best thing I could possibly listen to at that particular moment.

It was on cassette and maybe it had something to do with the cover art, but it just fit perfectly, hearing “Talent Show” and “I’ll Be You” and “Achin’ to Be,” wrapped in darkness, driving home with a deep longing sitting in the seat next to me; a sense of feeling adrift. My 1976 VW Bug was not factory blue, but it was still blue, and I was generally pretty unhappy. But the kind of unhappy I was was exactly the kind that could find anodyne in the music of the ‘Mats.