PW fav song

So this is for that “Win tickets to MGD’s ‘The Craft’ featuring Paul Westerberg from Paulwesterberg.net!” contest thingy. Trying to pick just one and only one fav song to write about is a difficult task. Flipping through my ipod generic music player, I scroll through all the songs, back and forth, up and down, and keep coming back to the sappy ones. I’m a sap. Skyway, Sadly, Beautiful, Portland, If Only You Were Lonely. There’s some killer get-me-going song that I love too, but I need to focus one, so I’ll pick If Only You Were Lonely. I pick it not because it was the last song talked about in the poll section but because it was the first PW/Mats song I ever heard (I told you, I’m a sap). I heard the song and it stopped me in my place. I had to play it over and over and over again. I became obsessed with. A normal person would have bled out their ears long ago. I even learned how to play it on the piano.

If Only You Were Lonely got me into PW/Mats because of the lyrics. When it comes down to it, taking the lyrics in their raw form they unveil PW as the simplistic drunken poet that he was (now, just poet). For me, to be able to transform words into their simplest meaning and make it seem effortless is pure beauty. That’s what he achieves with this song and why it took hold of me and kept me smiling since. BTW, I was a mere 15 yrs old when I first heard that song back in 1983. You do the math.