faul westerberg

ANDROGYNOUS — hand-cut vintage paper collage with dry-transfer lettering, 2025

Hello anon! Omg you're not a bother at all, I am constantly CRAVING people to talk to about this 😍 It's my obsession. Let's be friends? 🥺👋

I try to hold myself back from making too many RPF-ish posts, because it's important to me to respect the privacy of everybody, even famous folks, but... nobody can stop me from having Theories and Ideas 👀

And honestly, looking at the lyrics of so many of Paul's songs (and some of Tommy's as well), plus all the real-life stories out there (from Trouble Boys and other sources), it seems that they (especially Paul) are not particularly shy about addressing - at least in song lyrics - the significance of their own relationship and the role it has played in both of their lives.

Fwiw I wouldn't be surprised if Paul is bi and Tommy is straight, but they clearly had the kind of bff connection that transcends categories - perhaps the same kind of thing that got called a "romantic friendship" a hundred or so years ago.

Paul obviously thought Tommy was the best thing since sliced bread right from the first moment he saw him as a punk lil kid rockin the bass, and I get the impression that Tommy really looked up to Paul and was in awe of his creativity and original mind - it's so cute how in interview footage he's often just watching Paul like TV and giggling at everything he says.

Probs you're already familiar with the widely known stuff, such as the fact that Paul wrote "Sixteen Blue" mostly for Tommy (I suspect that song is also partially addressed to his own younger self, though), the fact that they once made out with each other supposedly as an attempt to "switch girls" (suuuure, guys), the fact that Paul described their relationship by saying "Tommy and I were kinda... girlfriends", and of course the legendary "Fuck off, faggot, he's MY bitch" scene. (If you don't know any of these stories, you've got some fun times ahead of you :'D)

But beyond that, I strongly feel that their shared dynamic, whatever it might have looked like in private - their mutual admiration and category-defying love for each other - was truly the heart of the Replacements and created a lot of the inexplicable magic of this band. As I always say to people, when it comes to the Mats, either you get it or you don't. Nobody can explain it to you.

So, what bands are you listening to lately? Anyone I've heard of? She rolled her eyes. Four years

later, same hotel, different distant relative. What bands are you into these days?

Who's gonna be the next big thing?

But the bands I loved never got big. They sabotaged themselves, or the world jawed them

for gristle. Or they got big for a split second then supernovaed, exploded in shards of PBR

cans and cassette tape cases, burnt up somewhere in the long dark over the Great Plains.

My people are suicides, in spirit if not in fact. Like me. We go right up to the ledge and if we

don't fall over the edge we set up camp there. My people are failed, beautiful.

They have nothing to live for, save the music. Save for that one perfect song.