36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Thirty One: These Days by R.E.M.

Do we look like Shiny Happy People
to you?

I'm surprised it took so long for another R.E.M. song to pop up in this series...the last time--the only time--I discussed the band from Athens, GA was in the very first 30 Songs, 30 Days series in 2009!

This is actually a live recording of this second track of Life's Rich Pageant, taken from a performance at the Olypmia in L.A. prior to the release of what would be their penultimate album, Accelerate. It features some banter by Michael Stipe where he mentions he wrote this song after emerging from a particularly dark time in his life when he was 25. It's interesting hearing him talk about this at that point where he was pretty well-adjusted, a few scant years before he and his mates decided to call it a day.

Life's Rich Pageant, which came fresh off the problematic sophmore album Fables of The Reconstruction, is a very political album, and I think some of this is political--but the true meaning lies in what Stipe tells us at the very beginning of this live recording. This is a song written by a man who was at turns angry and morose, and the lyrics can be seen as both an indictment of the laziness of the youth of the early Reagan era and a call to arms. Stipe is actively upset at the inactivity of his fellows, mocking them ('we have many things in common/name three'), threatening them ('I wish to eat each one of you') while also moving away from the listless masses, urging them to follow him into activity. After all, there is some hope in what he's saying, however dim--like him, his listeners are 'young despite the years' and he wants them to fly metaphorically to take this joy with them. I can't help but think that this is the morose, dark Stipe finding some purpose in activism and asking--nay, berating--his fans to follow him into this brave new proactive world.

It's a great song from a great album, one that I think marks the line between 'indie rock' R.E.M. and the 'mainstream arena pop' R.E.M. of their later years. Of course, the great trick of the band was how it slipped back and forth across this line several times throughout its career, which made them problematic to the mainstream who wanted just endless iterations of 'Shiny Happy People' and 'Stand' instead of the more nuanced, experimental and problematic stuff that made up Up and Automatic For The People and other great albums.

I don't miss R.E.M. now that they're gone; that would be silly given the massive body of music they left behind when they finally called it quits. But hearing songs like that makes me glad they were around.

 

Here's a video...

 

30 Songs, 30 Days (2009 Edition), Day Twenty Three: Disturbance At The Heron House by R.E.M.

I'm feeling profoundly depressed today, but make a promise, keep a promise....

And for today's patriotic entry we have proof of the American Dream--namely, R.E.M. Now be honest--don't you think that Michael Stipe is one of the most unlikely rockstars ever? A voice that may not be beautiful but is a tornado of emotions, a face that is at turns nondescript and ugly, a body like a scarecrow missing half its stuffing....and yet this man has fronted a band that has been on the cutting edge of modern rock music for over twenty five years. Oh, sure, I doubt anyone would argue that Around The Sun or Up are Titans of Rock Goodness....but their batting average is way above average. Hell, the guys' batting average is better than David Ortiz' these days (metaphorically, of course).

So this is a deep track from Document, which is arguably the album that really broke the band--it was the first album to crack the top ten, and the first to have a real Top 40 hit in "The One I Love." The song itself is a bit of fluff, basically using a fictitious breakout of animals in a fictitious zoo as a metaphor for people who are repressed to throw off their chains and celebrate themselves; I have to assume that Stipe, a not-really-closeted-but-not-talking-about-it-at-the-time homosexual was using it to talk about his own sexuality. I would have preferred something more meaty to talk about for the 4th of July, but it could have been worse--we could've been stuck with "Happy Shiny People," which threatened to turn the band into a pop group....

And still, when I think of Mr. Stipe, still living in his home town, using his money to make the lives of others better...I think that's what America is all about.

Happy 4th, everyone.