Ending more than a decade of acrimony, surviving Replacements members Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars reunited to record two new songs for the Rhino retrospective, "Don't You Know Who I Think I Was?: The Best of the Replacements." The set features "Message to the Boys" and "Pool & Dive," the band's first new recordings in 16 years.

Session drummer Josh Freese was behind the kit for the new recordings, while Mars, who in recent years has foregone music for an art career, contributed backing vocals. The songs were written by Westerberg and were recorded at producer Ed Ackerson's Flowers studio in Minneapolis.

Westerberg told Billboard.com in 2005 that he still reflects fondly on the Replacements' early days, especially "when we were riding in the van and we ripped the seats out and would just listen to tapes and listen to Black Flag. [We would] sort of slam dance and stuff around in the back of the van and be drinking hard liquor at noon and it was just, you know, carefree times. We didn't give a damn."

Westerberg also said he tried to reunite the Replacements for an October 2004 benefit concert for Soul Asylum's Karl Mueller, who later died of cancer. "I didn't call the guys myself," he admitted. "One of our old roadie pals came over who owns a bar now and runs a club and was asking if I would do a benefit for Karl and I said, 'See if the boys want to play.' And he kind of went around and got various answers and it didn't come back real strong like, 'Hey let's do it.' And I felt like that was the opportunity, that was the chance and we just missed it."