Sometimes the destiny of a song is determined by its placement on an album. An exceptional tune can get lost in the shuffle, even for the most diehard fans, due simply to its position in the album’s tracklist. “Little Mascara,” the penultimate track on The Replacements’ cite>Tim, is one such song, sandwiched unfortunately between two of the most iconic songs in the Mats catalog, “Left of the Dial” and “Here Comes A Regular.”
But judging “Little Mascara” out of the context of the album, it’s clear that it deserves more love. The track is about a woman in an unhappy marriage. Her husband (partner?) treats her like shit and then leaves her. By the end, Paul Westerberg sings a line that about how she wanted “someone to be scared of” — i.e., a bad boy. Still, the morality of the track comes into question, since, at the beginning of the song, Westerberg sings “You and I/ Fall together/ You and I/ Sleep alone,” which makes one wonder if this woman was having an affair with the narrator. Yep, all of this happens in this three-and-a-half-minute song.
It’s an interesting song that’s well worth another listen. Revisit it here:
