Can't Hardly Wait - Outtake - Electric

"Can't Hardly Wait" mutated from an obvious suicide song to a more opaque and less controversial one. Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg wrote it after completing recording sessions for the band's third studio album, Let It Be (1984). That version, recorded for their fourth album, Tim (1985), but left off the tracklist, is unambiguously about a guy driving to a water tower to kill himself. It mentions someone else abandoning him ("I'll be sad in heaven, you won't follow me there"), but is otherwise a clearcut meditation on his own chaotic life and his desire to end it. By the time the song was finally released on their next album, Pleased To Meet Me (1987), Westerberg obfuscated the suicide aspect to the point that it was impossible to detect. In the new version, the lyrics are directed outward to some unnamed person to whom Westerberg is writing a letter. The thing that Westerberg "can't hardly wait" for is to get home and go to sleep. Knowing the song's origin, we can frame "sleep" as death, but even then the rest of the lyrics don't make much sense. In the original demo, which eventually leaked, the thing he can't hardly wait for is distressingly clear: I'll be sad in heaven If I don't find a hole in the gate Climb on to the top of this scummy water tower screamin' I can't hardly wait I can't wait... 'til it's over

Two lines came over verbatim from the first to the final version: Jesus rides beside me He never buys any smokes The lines are amusing but otherwise insignificant in the final recording. They take on more weight in the original as we understand that Westerberg is driving to kill himself. In the transformation of the verse we see the whole story of the song's transition. It went from: Jesus rides beside me And never buys any smokes Hurry up, hurry up, I've got enough of this stuff Ashtray floors, dirty clothes, filthy jokes to Jesus rides beside me He never buys any smokes Hurry up, hurry up, ain't you had enough of this stuff? Ashtray floors, dirty clothes and filthy jokes In the first version, we hear the tired despair in "I've got enough of this stuff." In the final, our focus is directed from the character's car to some anonymous third person, and we're not sure why.

Westerberg wrote the song after the band completed recording Let It Be, their third studio album. They recorded acoustic and electric versions for Tim, their fourth studio album, but left them out because they were unhappy with the quality. They were tired of the song by the time Pleased To Meet Me rolled around. Talent scout (formally called an "Artists and Repertoire" agent) Michael Hill convinced them to do it again. Hill first met the band early in their career when he was a writer for the now-defunct New York Rocker magazine and remained a friend of the group. Hill was from working-class roots like The Replacements, which cemented their connection. He played various important roles in their career. Hill pushed them to reconsider the song while they were in Memphis, Tennessee. They made a couple failed attempts before a last-ditch effort after a night of hard partying. Westerberg tinkered with the lyrics in a Holiday Inn while hungover, which may account for the addition of the "drapes" to the song ("Lights that flash in the evening, through a crack in the drapes"). Drapes don't appear in the first version, where lights flash simply "in the evening," and the only "hole" mentioned is in a gate.