I'm on an R.E.M. kick. I've been listening to them a lot lately and I'm thinking of doing an album every Tuesday this month because it has nothing to do with the holidays and there's only so much "Jingle Bell Rock" one can take.
One of my favorite albums is R.E.M.'s Green. It's one that I still own my original vinyl copy of (that has aged beautifully in the past 20 years) and I believe it's an album that is overshadowed by Out Of Time and Automatic For The People. Green was the first album recorded once the band left IRS and signed with Warner Bros and I think its serves as a fantastic and definite bridge between a different and more mainstream sound the band developed. It's also the first album guitarist Peter Buck used the mandolin on and that wacky Michael Stipe sang through a megapone on several songs. And so, this is a different kind of album, maybe that's why I've always liked it so much. Or it could just be that the album cover is orange and the title is Green and that's something my mother commented on when I bought it in 1989. No idea what the band sounded like or that I loved them so much, just "why would they call it Green, it's orange."
So, we have a band that was mostly considered college rock and had success with previous songs like "The One I Love" and "It's The End of The World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" and they come out with Green. R.E.M. had a hit with a very poppy pop song, "Stand," a song you all know and could most likely sing along to. The other big hit off the album, "Orange Crush," a song about the use of Agent Orange, the herbicide used in the Vietnam War, which led to the deaths and disabilities of more than 400,000 people, as well as the 500,000 babies born with birth defects in Vietnam. You didn't think it was about the soft drink, now did you?
The song "You Are The Everything" is haunting and beautiful and I love it. I love everything about it: the mandolin, the accordion, the line "you're drifting off to sleep with your teeth in your mouth," and the "say, say the light" refrain, just the whole song. Here it is for you.
http://www.lala.com/external/flash/SingleSongWidget.swf
You Are The Everything – R.E.M…
Back in the day, I remember opening Green and seeing that there was only one song with printed lyrics. That song was "World Leader Pretend." That struck me as odd as a teenager and I hadn't thought about it until tonight when I decided to write about the album. Here's what I found out about the song from Wikipedia:
Michael Stipe said in a 2008 interview with Rolling Stone looking back on Green: "For me the big moment was 'World Leader Pretend'. It's a tribute to Leonard Cohen, using millitary terms to describe a battle within. I was so proud of my lyrics and my vocal take that I refused to sing it a second time. I did it once. That was it."
Here's "World Leader Pretend" from 1991 and part of an interview about the folk sound in the instruments.
That's good stuff.
After "Orange Crush" on the album comes a rockin' good song, "Turn You Inside Out." It's a good choice to follow a heavy song. It features a few things I love about R.E.M. — neat lyrics ("divide your cultured pearls in haste"), great guitar, Stipe's voice, and fun backing vocals.
http://www.lala.com/external/flash/SingleSongWidget.swf
Maybe one of the best things on Green is the last song on the album. It's one of my favorites, simply titled "eleventh" on the original album, as it was the 11th song. If you buy it on iTunes you'll see that it's just "Untitled." It's one of those songs I can't really put my finger on why I like it so much, but I adore this one. Here it is with the lyrics, because I think it's a special little song.
http://www.lala.com/external/flash/SingleSongWidget.swf
This world is big and so-awake
I stayed up late to hear your voice
This light is here to keep you warm
This song is here to keep you strong
I made a list of things to say
But all I really want to say
All I really want to say is
Hold her and keep him strong
While I'm away from here
Hold her and keep her strong
While I'm away from here
Hold her and keep him strong
While I'm away from here
I've seen the world and so-awake
And stay up late to hear me sing
Just hold her
I've seen the world and so-awake
And stay up late to hear me sing
Just hold him
Hold her and keep her strong
While I'm away from here
Hold him and keep him strong
While I'm away from here
So, that's the Green post. I hope you enjoyed it, that maybe it brought back some memories from'89, that you liked some of the lesser-known R.E.M. songs that I think are superfantastic, and that it gave you a break from a mundane Tuesday.
kerryfaler.blog 
🙂 R.E.M. how i love them.
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“Green” is the album that was the soundtrack of my senior year in high school. Stipe and the boys got me through the hellaciousness and misery during those dark days in ’88. I remember picking up this album in a mall one bust holiday evening in November, 1988. The longbox days of CDs, remember?
Anyway, the girl I was in love with then was into them. She was all arty and tormented but she had a profound effect on me and I’ll always be grateful for her introducing me to R.E.M.–especially “Fables of the Reconstruction.” But the second half of “Green” is my favorite; there’s wonderfully delicate playing and singing and a couple of moody rockers, too.
I was pleased to read Stipe’s comments regarding “World Leader Pretend” because it has become my favorite song of theirs. I must’ve listened to the song hundreds of times back then but never understood the lyrics and their meaning–as they apply to me, anyway–until this very week. I happened upon the song and every word reminded me of who I was and who I’ve become, or rather, how I’ve “grown” in the intervening years. I hadn’t listened to R.E.M. in seventeen years so it’s amazing how a song finally “clicks” after so much time years…or to use Star Trek II parlance: “Something Spock was trying to tell me. On my birthday.” 😉
I like your blog and will be keeping it bookmarked.
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