Alex Chilton - 2008 Remaster

This song is a tribute to former Box Tops/Big Star member Alex Chilton, credited by many as being the founder of Power Pop. He has produced several songs for The Replacements. The song is not only a tribute, but a reminder of Alex Chilton's relative obscurity, as emphasized in the ironically hyperbolic chorus: "And children by the million sing for Alex Chilton/When he comes 'round/They sing, "I'm in love/What's that song?/Yeah, I'm in love, with that song."

Chilton may have played guitar on "Can't Hardly Wait," one of the singles from Pleased To Meet Me. In a 2008 interview with Rockband.com, the Replacements singer and guitar Paul Westerberg, who co-wrote the song with bandmates Chris Mars and Tommy Stinson, said that he couldn't remember if Chilton played on the track: "He was there. I mean, uh...well, s--t did he play on it... I don't know if we had actually played with him earlier or not but I don't think we had the 'Alex Chilton' song when we he did that 'Can't Hardly Wait,' that early thing." In the same interview, Westerberg described the songwriting process: "it's one of those where melody and chord changes were there and the lyrics changed over the course of six months or so. By the time we were down in Memphis we had already met Alex and I steered it toward him. Of course it was as the legend goes 'George from Outer Space' was the first working title, but that just didn't grab it quite as well. I just thought it would be fun to write a song about a living person and we've been through this, Al and I, and I sort of regret the albatross that it's came with... I was certainly trying to like, I guess, hip the outside world on who this guy might be publicly, but he didn't need that. It would kind of hurt if he was always known as Alex Chilton of that song."

In a 1987 interview with Buzz magazine, asked how he felt about the song, Alex Chilton said: "Uh well, I didn't feel any way about it. I mean I'm so used to having these kind of fawning, imbecilic fans you know. To have it take on some coherence is refreshing."