‘Crackle and Drag’: the song Paul Westerberg wrote for Sylvia Plath
Paul Westerberg has always seemed to write about people from the wrong sides of the tracks. Since The Replacements were never meant to be the biggest band in the world, half of Westerberg’s lyrics revolved around people who would probably never have any songs written about them, usually focusing on the junkies of society and following Lou Reed’s model of people who didn’t quite fit in. Sometimes, those misfits do end up making the big time. When learning about the life of Sylvia Plath, Westerberg knew that he had to memorialise her work in song.
Then again, poetry has never been that far away from rock and roll. Bob Dylan put more complex images into his writing, and everyone from Leonard Cohen to Lou Reed was focused on making lyrics that made you take a step back and re-evaluate what they had just said rather than hang into a melody.
While Westerberg started off like that with the hardcore era of The Replacements, it’s not like he couldn’t put a melody together. Songs like ‘Here Comes a Regular’ can break your heart if you’re not careful, but ‘Crackle and Drag’ is focused on telling Plath’s story more than Westerberg’s.
Plath may have tried to channel her innermost feelings into her work, but in 1963, she hit a bout of depression that she would never recover from. After struggling to make ends meet and not getting any help from anti-depressants, Plath was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning after sticking her head in her oven.
While Plath’s career would only surge after her death, Westerberg was transfixed by the idea of someone the world never understood at the time. Considering that many rock stars, like Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and John Lennon, became deified shortly after their death, Westerberg tried to bring Plath into the cultural conversation on ‘Crackle and Drag’.
After pinching the title from Plath’s poem, ‘Echo’, the entire song feels like a meditation on the kind of people who are never given the time of day when they should. Rather than focus on her life, Westerberg puts the listener right at the time of death, going into detail about the body being disposed of and never heard from again.
Compared to other pieces that are looking to pay tribute to their muses, this version of the song feels oddly stoic and cold. But maybe that’s the point. The entire ethos behind the track is about how people never appreciate those while they’re still here, and when the initial shock that someone has passed on hits you, all your brain can do is get down to the cold, hard facts of the situation because if you let yourself go deeper, it will start to drive you mad.
Since Plath is never mentioned by name, this could also just as easily be a work of fiction for the uninitiated, with Westerberg addressing it to everyone from an old lover to a family member. Plath may have never gotten the recognition she should have while she could still enjoy it, but Westberg knows that as long as you keep their work on your lips, they will never truly fade away.
