Kids Don't Follow

The Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg wrote this song after seeing U2 perform "I Will Follow" twice at a show in April 1981. Westerberg liked the sound of the song but had a problem with its message - he looked around him and saw a bunch of kids rebelling, not following. He wrote "Kids Don't Follow" in response. Westerberg didn't know that U2 frontman Bono wrote "I Will Follow" for his mother. It wasn't a blanket statement about youth.

Westerberg often wrote songs as disgruntled responses to other songs. The Stink album is bookended with such songs, opening with "Kids Don't Follow" and closing with "Gimme Noise," a response to "Music For Boys" by The Suburbs.

Before the song begins you can hear a recording of Minneapolis police busting a house party the band had thrown to raise rent money. Voices can be heard cursing out the cops. In Trouble Boys, author Bob Mehr confirms long-held rumors that one of the voices is that of Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner. Pirner explains they'd been hiding behind a soundboard and yelling because they knew the police couldn't identify where the voices were coming from. The Current asked Pirner about the event. Pirner confirmed he was there and called it "the second-best Minneapolis warehouse party ever," after a warehouse party dubbed "the Cold Party" and held by Minneapolis act Man Sized Action. It was catered by White Castle.