Swingin Party

Album: Tim (1985)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "Swingin Party" is about wild parties, lampshades-on-heads and all, but there's more going on beneath the surface.

    The Replacements were notorious for heavy drinking and drugging. Their habits were so egregious that even grizzled recording executives didn't like dealing with the band. Fans romanticized the partying as they are wont to do, but this excess was more human than it was heroic. The band drank to quell their performance anxiety. The group started very young (at only 12-years-old in the case of bassist Tommy Stinson) and kept a busy schedule for over a decade, but going on stage was still frightening for them. That fear is manifest in the lyrics:

    If being afraid is a crime
    We hang side by side
    At the swingin' party down the line
  • Lorde covered the song in 2013, including it on the US iTunes Store edition of The Love Club EP and on the B-side to the "Tennis Court" single. On June 17, 2013, the song climbed to #10 on the New Zealand Singles Chart. She then included it on the extended version of her debut studio album, Pure Heroine.

    Other covers include:

    Popland on their 2000 tribute album, Left of the Dial: A Pop Tribute to The Replacements.

    Annie Hayden covered the song in 2005 on The Enemy of Love.

    Also in 2005, The Weakerthans performed the song at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

    Kindness did a house-music interpretation in 2009 and released it as their first single. Their version was used in the 2015 film Paper Towns.
  • Paul Westerberg got the kernel for the song while listening to a bootleg version of "Flying On The Ground Is Wrong" by Buffalo Springfield.
  • Tommy Erdelyi, better known as Tommy Ramone of the punk-pioneering Ramones, produced this song and the rest of the Tim album.

Comments: 1

  • Fogmoose from NyA "swingin party" was slang for a public hanging in the old west days, and Westerberg was certainly aware of the double meaning when writing the song.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Justin Timberlake

Justin TimberlakeFact or Fiction

Was Justin the first to be Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher? Did Britney really blame him for her meltdown? Did his bandmates think he was gay?

80s Video Director Jay Dubin

80s Video Director Jay DubinSong Writing

Billy Joel and Hall & Oates hated making videos, so they chose a director with similar contempt for the medium. That was Jay Dubin, and he has a lot to say on the subject.

John Waite

John WaiteSongwriter Interviews

"Missing You" was a spontaneous outpouring of emotion triggered by a phone call. John tells that story and explains what MTV meant to his career.

Songs in Famous Movie Scenes: Tarantino Edition

Songs in Famous Movie Scenes: Tarantino EditionMusic Quiz

Whether he's splitting ears or burning Nazis, Quentin Tarantino uses memorable music in his films. See if you can match the song to the scene.

Don Brewer of Grand Funk

Don Brewer of Grand FunkSongwriter Interviews

The drummer and one of the primary songwriters in Grand Funk talks rock stardom and Todd Rundgren.

Ben Kowalewicz of Billy Talent

Ben Kowalewicz of Billy TalentSongwriter Interviews

The frontman for one of Canada's most well-known punk rock bands talks about his Eddie Vedder encounter, Billy Talent's new album, and the importance of rock and roll.