Let it Be (Liner Notes)
Liner Notes (written in 2018)
It's been a long while since I'd written fiction. My last book was finished a decade ago, and even my last narrative feature, Broken Side of Time, was mostly improvised. It's been almost nothing but documentary features. The truth is stranger than fiction cliché is so beautifully true, so alive, so inspiring.
That didn't stop the itch from returning. And when Jay Stringer reached out last year for a collection of short stories he was compiling called Waiting To Be Forgotten: Stories of Crime and Heartbreak inspired by The Replacements, it came on full force. Each story in his book would be loosely based on a Mats' song title. I chose If Only You Were Lonely and turned it into an ode to Raymond Chandler.
I so loved writing that short story for Jay's anthology that I began thinking about doing another book. But I knew that I wanted it to be different. In style, technique. As with Color Me Obsessed, I wanted to shoot myself in the foot with something impossible.
We all know inspiration comes from strange places. The second part of my inspiration for the madness behind Let It Be came from the reality cooking show, Top Chef, and the occasional challenge in which the contestants were required to deconstruct a food staple: the deconstructed taco, the deconstructed bacon & eggs breakfast, the deconstructed hot dog. I was fascinated by how they could turn the most iconic meals inside out, making them unrecognizable.
So I started thinking, what if I did that with a favorite album. Deconstruct every song into a short story. One that didn't necessarily have anything to do with the song, but just the way the song made me feel. I turned immediately to the obvious album from the obvious band. But the songs had to be in the same order as on the record, and looking over the titles what could I possible do with Gary's Got A Boner, Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out, or the most difficult of all the chapters to write, the Kiss cover song, Black Diamond? Of course, as if often happens, Gary gave way to the longest chapter in the book.
The ideas started coming. Perhaps the short stories could be loosely linked by one character. But as they developed in my head, and I started writing I Will Dare (the stories through not chronological in my character's life, were written in the order in which they appear in this book, the order they are in if one were to listen to the album from start to finish), the realization came that they really were all about the same character. My nameless character. Her life in eleven tracks. And that this really had become more than just a collection of short stories, it was a novel, a life, so many warts and all. Almost like the record it was inspired by, or any great album, it was not eleven individual songs, but something much more complete.
And much like any record that could be listened to in order from start to finish, or listened to on shuffle play, so where the chapters in this book. You could read them in order, out of order, backwards. And hopefully every time you’d get a different take on my character’s life.
For fans of the album, you might look at these stories and wonder just how much I was drinking was I when writing these words. Not all that much, would be my response. (Okay, a glass of Buffalo Trace now and then.) I've always had a basic problem with Let It Be. I know it's one of the greatest albums of all time. It's certainly The Replacements’ best work. Westerberg's songwriting is genius throughout. The band never sounded better. And the production is what every rock & roll record should sound like. It's perfect. Too perfect. But for me it was always difficult to listen to. So many of the songs evoked gut-wrenching emotions. It was just easier, more fun, to listen to Tim, or Pleased to Meet Me, or Sorry Ma, or Hootenanny. Let it Be hurts because it's too damn good.
The stories in this book come from those feelings, as fucked up as they might seem. As that premise might seem. But what makes any great work of art, like The Mats fourth album, so special, is that is means a million different things to a million different people.
This is what is means to me.
Gorman Bechard