14 Songs

Paul Westerberg has always been a master of melancholy and sadness in rock ’n’ roll. His songs show the kind of empathy that only great songwriters possess, and that empathy rules on this 1992 solo debut. The loss-of-innocence nostalgia of “First Glimmer” will have you aching for your own childhood, and the spare lullaby “Even Here We Are” (just an acoustic guitar and voice) has an unguarded yearning built on telling lines like “Just the song of a bird way up in the sky/But the most beautiful by far/Is the scream of the man who never learnt to fly.” “Runaway Wind” should’ve owned the airwaves; it’s a gentle roller with all the pathos of any great Springsteen tune about hitting the road and deliverance. The beautiful “Things” is as open and honest as any love song ever written. Westerberg rocks here too, with lots of self-depreciation and wit; “Silver Naked Ladies,” “World Class Fad," and “Dice Behind Your Eyes” all are stellar and would’ve worked as Replacements A-sides.