Monday, February 18, 2019

Certain Songs #1458: Paul Westerberg – “Dyslexic Heart” | Medialoper


Album: Singles – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Year: 1992

OK, so first of all, let’s stipulate that no matter what it says on the label, All Shook Down was basically Paul Westerberg’s first solo album, which I think we all kinda knew at the time, but came even clearer when they broke up while touring it, as well as over the subsequent years.

But what was he going do next? That was the question that those of us who made best-of tapes called How The Replacements Saved My Life and considered Paul Westerberg the best songwriter of our generation were dead curious about. The answer came in the summer of 1992 with the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe’s love letter to Gen-X, Singles: Paul Westerberg was going to leverage his songwriting talent, tamp down his self-destructive impulses and try to get famous by writing high-quality, incredibly catchy pop songs.

Regular readers of this blog know that I think there’s nothing wrong with that — and welcome to any fellow ‘mats fans who’ve clicked on this not really knowing what Certain Songs is — though I know a lot of people who were taken aback at how overt Paul was about it with his two contributions to Singles, “Waiting For Somebody” and “Dyslexic Heart,” the latter of which even had a Crowe-directed video that might even have been played on MTV.

In my eyes, all of this was a make-up by Crowe for mis-using “Within Your Reach” in Say Anything. It says here that “Within Your Reach” is the song that shoulda scored the boombox scene, not Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” I loved Say Anything (though I haven’t seen it in quite a few years), but I would have loved it even more had “Within Your Reach” been the soundtrack for its most iconic scene.

I’ll just say it up front: I loved “Dyslexic Heart.” I was right in the middle of a relationship that was clearly doomed, and so all of the mixed-up confusion he was singing about totally resonated with me. And you know what else resonated with me:

Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nuh nah nah
Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nuh nah nah
Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nuh nah nah
Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nuh nah nah

My guess is that if you hate “Dyslexic Heart,” this is where you start. Also, if you love “Dyslexic Heart,” this is where you star. You had to make a choice: you could either lose yourself in the catchiness or notice just how over-produced it is. And, yeah, “Dyslexic Heart” has just too damn much stuff going on: vocal and keyboard and guitar overdubs — even strings at the end — but also, handclaps!

Luckily, no amount of studio wizardry could make Paul Westerberg’s vocals seem slick — to me, the key to his music has always been his singing, how his natural abrasiveness continually crosses swords with his natural tunefulness — and so his lead vocals stick out like a sore thumb, especially on the bridge.

You keep swayin’
What are you sayin’?
Thinking ’bout stayin’?
Or are you just playing, making passes
Well, my heart could use some glasses

I try and comprehend you
But I got a dyslexic hearrrrrrrrrrrt

And sure, all of these years later, “Dyslexic Heart” is certainly inferior to the glories of The Replacements, as well as in the lower rungs of his best solo songs, but at the same time, it was also kinda what I needed right there right then, just whetting my appetite for his first official solo album.

“Dyslexic Heart” Official Video

“Dyslexic Heart” Acoustic Demo

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