R.E.M. Released Document 33 years ago today and that’s super cool because it’s one of my favorites and the album the public at large became of this little group I’d loved for around three years. It had “The One I Love” and “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, which are great, but I’m going to tell you about three lesser known songs that are amazing.
“Finest Worksong” is one of my favorites and it’s great played loud. I’m going to give y’all the Mutual Drum Horn mix with added horns by Uptown Horns. You can find that one on Eponymous. Listen to Michael Stipe turn the word “rearrange” into at least seven syllables
The next song is “Exhuming McCarthy,” which is just fantastic. From the typewriter clicks at the beginning to the horns to Mile Mills’ backing vocals. It’s the only song I know about the McCarthy Hearings. McCarthy refers to Joseph McCarthy, an US senator in the face of a period in the fifties. This was in the Cold War. He made claims that there were a lot of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Michael Stipe apparently had thoughts on this that went with an upbeat tempo.
The last song today is “Disturbance at the Heron House,” which Michael Stipe explained to Rolling Stone, November 12, 2009: “The song was my take on Animal Farm, an uprising dismissed by the powers that be. There were rumors then that Reagan’s vice president, Bush Senior, might run. I thought those were dark years, the ’80s. We had no idea what was to come.”
Again, everything on this album is about politics. I love it. Here’s the Unplugged version, which is my favorite.
I hope y’all enjoyed today’s post. This was straight from my heart.
kerryfaler.blog 