Mr. Whirly

Actually, most of the song is based of "Oh! Darling!" by The Beatles.

Although I have no idea what the lyrics are about, it is clear that The Replacements have a been influenced by The Beatles in a big way. They use 3 of the Beatles songs here:

Strawberry Fields Forever The Twist Oh! Darling!

Not to mention that they named one of their albums Let It Be, a clear reference to The Beatles album and song.

Remember that episode of the Simpsons when Barney drinks the funky juice manufactured by the hippies, starts hallucinating, then drinks a beer and Pinky, his imaginary friend elephant, appears to kill off the other animal in the aforementioned hallucination? Well, if you do, you might have an inkling of what Mr. Whirly is about. Mr. Whirly is an imaginary drunken buddy of Paul Westerberg. The song itself chronicles a night of drunken debauchery in the life of Mr. Westerberg. The humdrum 'Strawberry Fields' riff that begins the song is indicative of Paul's mindset as he wanders into his favorite watering hole. As the night progresses, Paul becomes drunker, and kicks into party mode, as indicated by the shift to 'The Twist.' Then, as he reaches drunken bliss, his imaginary friend Mr. Whirly appears in the more relaxed 'Oh My Darling' section. He wants Mr. Whirly to be there, but he feels like he's too drunk at this point in time and feels like he will only be a disappointment in his company. He insists that he's alright, that Whirly doesn't have to 'follow [him] home,' but clearly Paul is drunk to the point of seeing his imaginary friend that only appears in this intoxicated state.

what IS this song about?

it starts out with the opening to strawberry fields

then there is a punk version of the twist, and then this pleading to "mr whirly"

bedspins?

but anyway - this song sounds to me like a true precursor to the sound that made nirvana famous.

hey sundowner120 - nice call!