Songfacts®:

• "The Ledge" is about suicide. The theme isn't uncommon, but the song's psychological insight and spirit of heroic defiance make it one of the more powerful (some say disturbing) takes on the subject.
  
  In the song, Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg sings as a young person (he refers to himself as "a boy" but never specifies his age) who's climbing a ledge to commit suicide while police, a priest, and the press watch from below. The song draws us into the moment with sensory details.
  
  Wind blows cold from the west
  I smell coffee, I smell doughnuts for the press
  A girl that I knew once years ago
  Is tryin' to be reached on the phone
  
  The final line of the song ("for the last time will not reach the ledge") ends sounding as if he is actually falling, indicating he went through with it.
  
  Rather than coming across as a cry for help, the song's character is openly defiant of everyone who wants to help. That's the thing that fascinates many people while repelling others. It's a statement of a successful suicide, unapologetic and unredeemed.
  
  I'm the boy they couldn't ignore
  For the first time in my life, I'm sure
  I'm the boy they couldn't ignore
  For the first time in my life, I'm sure
• Westerberg wrote the song in 45 minutes on a rainy afternoon in autumn 1986. He incorporated bits of the story about the suicide of a high school friend named John Zika, and bits from the story of his own teenage drug overdose.
• Westerberg took his inspiration for "The Ledge" from "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" (1950) by Hank Williams. The song had him thinking of making a similarly defiant suicide song since at least 1980, when he penned one titled "D-E-A-D" that was never released.
• According to Trouble Boys by Bob Mehr, Westerberg lifted the song's riff from "Highway Song" by Blackfoot, recorded in 1979.
• The band recorded the song in one take with everything done live on the spot. When it was over, an emotionally drained Westerberg lay down on a couch and asked if he'd have to do it again. He didn't.
• As recounted in Trouble Boys, much debate surrounded the choice of lead single for the Pleased To Meet Me album. "Can't Hardly Wait" was a contender, but Westerberg thought it would be "like false advertising" because the sound wasn't representative of the album as a whole. "Alex Chilton" was another possibility, but executives questioned the viability of of a song about a highly obscure musical figure (Alex Chilton, frontman for Big Star). In the end, Warner's VP of rock promotion, George Gerrity, settled on "The Ledge" because of its backbeat and guitar solo.
• Creem magazine editor Bill Holdship wrote liner notes for the 2008 rerelease of Pleased To Meet Me. They ended up on the cutting-room floor but were released on Rock's Backpages. In them, Holdship writes, "Westerberg is the most sensitive of any artist I've ever worked with. And at that point in his career, he was like a raw nerve end." The description gives us a look into Westerberg's mental state as he recorded this powerfully emotional song.
• MTV banned the video for "The Ledge," a black-and-white clip that simply shows the band looking bored. The problem wasn't the video itself but the subject matter of the song, which they feared might lead to teenage suicides.