The Story Behind The Song: ‘Left Of The Dial’ by The Replacements
‘Left Of The Dial’ by The Replacements is not a love song. It’s a love story. I do not mean the song tells a love story. It’s not about two star-crossed lovers meeting, at least not explicitly. Very few songs Paul Westerberg writes are that traditional. I mean that this song is a love story at its core, the way that Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright’ is an act of protest and The Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ is an expression of heartbreak, no matter how far you take those particular songs from their intended context.
Somehow, it manages to be this while, from a lyrical perspective, it’s mainly a bitter, somewhat sarcastic tribute to college radio stations. For those of you too young to know what we’re talking about here, college radio stations were often independent local channels that could control their own playlists. This stood in stark contrast to the mainstream FM stations on the right-hand side of the dial.
If you wanted to hear what was happening in alternative rock in the 1980s, you went to the college stations. They supported The Replacements long after they’d scared off nearly every other industry insider who’d ever believed in them. Which speaks to the eternal dichotomy of ‘The ‘Mats’. A perpetually jaded, cynical band with a big bleeding heart at the centre, the conflict between the two making the band one of the most compelling of their age, for better and for worse.
By 1984, The Replacements had already released one of the decade’s most celebrated rock albums. Let It Be had made cult heroes of the band, and major labels had begun sniffing around to see if they could replicate the success REM had with IRS Records. Paul Westerberg’s band were, on the surface, a no-brainer. They looked the part with Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson’s bad-boy looks, and they sounded the part by writing the kind of staggering pop hooks that made Tom Petty a household name.
The trouble was, unfortunately, The Replacements themselves. They tended to approach every possible opportunity they had to become the arena-filling superstars with a can of gasoline in one hand, a match in the other and a broad grin across their faces. So, while they could have ascended to the theatres and small arenas that Stipe and co. were calling home that year, they remained shackled to the clubs and bars touring circuit, a circuit kept afloat by college radio.
This was where the song began in 1983. With a swooning guitar riff and a title, one that stayed with it until it was recorded. However, what then happened was a fateful few days spent on the road with an indie band from Georgia called Let’s Active. Among them was guitarist Lynn Blakey, who Westerberg took one look at and was immediately smitten. Charmingly, when Westerberg was asked about the song later, he described Blakey as “a friend”. But Blakey herself remembers it differently, saying, “He followed me around and bummed cigarettes off me.”
After a show the following night in Berkely, Blakey and Westerberg spent two hours straight together. The specifics of what they got up to are lost to time, but it’s clear that they made a big impression on each other. They tried to stay in touch after, but as Westerberg put it in his trademark deadpan turn of phrase, “She wanted me to write her a letter, but I never write letters.”
It’s a tale as old as time. The fates of touring throw together two bands; two members hit it off, and before they know it, they’re pulled apart again. The world was a much, much bigger place in the 1980s than it is today, and long-distance friendships, let alone relationships, weren’t as commonplace as they have become. Westerberg, self-destructive and mournfully aware of it, knew that this wasn’t going to continue much longer, so he resigned to hearing from Blakely some other way.
As if the story wasn’t already straight out of an indie romantic drama, what happened next can only be believed when coming straight from the horse’s mouth. As Westerberg told Rolling Stone, “I figured the only way I’d hear her voice was with her band on the radio. We were passing through a town somewhere, and she was doing an interview on the radio, left of the dial. I heard her voice for the first time in six months for about a minute. Then the station faded out.”
The rest of the song fell into place within the next couple of days. A tribute to the stations that kept them afloat, sure, but also to so much more. To a lost love. To people finding themselves and other like-minded lost souls in alternative spaces. To how the memory of those people lasts so much longer than the relationships do. Top that off with one of the band’s best studio performances (especially on the remastered Tim: Let It Bleed), and you’ve got one of the highlights and most enduring songs of The Replacements’ whole back catalogue.
What would a love story be without an epilogue though? Of course, we all know what happened to Westerberg next. ‘The ‘Mats’ flamed out the way they had flamed in, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory but inspiring the next 40 years of modern rock. Less talked about is Blakey herself. Much more than a mere muse, she continued making music solo and with bands for the next decade, before joining the cult country trio Tres Chicas in 1997, with whom she performs to this day.
That said, if you are going to be known for inspiring a song, though, it might as well be one of the best rock songs of the 1980s.
