I'll Be You

"I'll Be You" was the lead single from The Replacements' seventh studio album Don't Tell a Soul in 1989 and was written by lead singer Paul Westerberg. It became the band's first and only Billboard Hot 100 hit, peaking at #51 and reaching the top of both the modern rock and mainstream rock charts.

The song was the band's first to feature a serious music video with hopes of receiving airtime on MTV. Previous videos were created at the request of the record label and were not taken seriously, such as the one for the song "Bastards of Young," in which the video shows a stereo playing the song. This song, as well as the entire album, showed the band trying to break through into the mainstream.

The most common interpretation of the song is that it is about the band trying to become pop icons. The song lacks an exact chorus but does have a bridge that changes each time through. The song talks about dreaming to be "surfer joe," but knowing that they are not. Thus in a plea to people in the spotlight, the band says "You be me for a while and I'll be you." Alternately, the song could be about the opposite viewpoint, of being weary of all the adulation and asking to trade places with someone not burdened by the expectations of fans and critics.