Bill Berry – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

REM – Talk About The Passion

During my break from blogging, I was listening to everything from arena rock, to alternative rock, to newer rock music. The Replacements and R.E.M were high on my alternative list. I like the early R.E.M. songs that don’t get as much attention nowadays because of the big hits that came later.

This was the second single from R.E.M.’s debut album, Murmur. The first single was Radio Free Europe released in 1983. The guitar melody/solo in this song actually comes from multiple acoustic guitars played by Mike Mills, Peter Buck, and producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon.

The album was rated number eight on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the TV network VH1 named Murmur the 92nd greatest album of all time.

The 1988 video, directed by Jem A. Cohen, expounds on the lyrics’ references to hunger by placing images of homeless people with a multi-million dollar warship.

Michael Stipe: “I had taken a French course at college, which I dutifully flunked out of, and Linda Hopper and I thought that the phrase, ‘combien de temps,’ that is, roughly, ‘how much time?’ was deeply meaningful and beautiful. I did sing it that way and it works here, if only here. We were 22 at the time after all.”

The song is credited to Berry, Buck, Mills, and Stipe as were most of their songs except for a few covers they did. This was a smart thing they did and probably is the reason for the longevity of the band and the continued friendship they have now. Many bands break up because one or two songwriters get all the publishing rights and make much more money.

Mike Mills on Bill Berry’s contributions: He would generally come up with several ideas for each record, and he would also be a really good editor for us. He was always very much about keeping them short, getting to the hook. He didn’t want to waste a lot of time and people’s attention noodling around.

Talk About The Passion

Empty prayer, empty mouths combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths talk about the passion
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world

Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion

Empty prayer, empty mouths combien reaction
Empty prayer, empty mouths talk about the passion
Combien, combien, combien de temps?

Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion

Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Not everyone can carry the weight of the world
Combien, combien, combien de temps?

Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion
Talk about the passion

REM – So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)

I’ll be back posting this coming Friday, September 2. Thanks for stopping by!

Love this song from Peter Bucks jangling intro to the song’s melody. The origin of this song came on June 11, 1983. REM was opening up for the Human League in Los Angelos and heard about bad rainstorms in south Georgia where they were from. They were trying to call their families but the phones were down because of the torrential rain.

The song was on their Reckoning album released in 1984. It peaked at #27 on the Billboard Album Charts, #23 in New Zealand, and #91 in the UK in 1984. REM. avoided the sophomore slump with Reckoning. It’s hard to beat this song as the first single off the album. I always thought So. Central Rain stands as one of the group’s most melodic songs.

The band chose to work with Murmur producers Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. They recorded the album in just a few weeks. Peter Buck told Rolling Stone magazine: “We were going through this streak where we were writing two good songs a week, We just wanted to do it; whenever we had a new batch of songs, it was time to record!”

The cover art to the album came from Stipe. The drawing of a two-headed snake which he gave to artist Howard Finster to fill in as a painting. A Georgian artist and Baptist minister, Finster claimed to be inspired by God to spread the gospel through the design of his swampy land into Paradise Garden, a folk and art sculpture garden in his native state which can also be seen in the video for Radio Free Europe.

The song peaked at #85 on the Billboard 100 and #43 on the Mainstream Rock Charts.

REM performed this song on The David Letterman Show in October of 1983 before it had a title. It was their first national TV appearance.

Michael Stipe: “They were all really nice to us, we were so green. The producers told us before the show that Dave would come over and talk to one band member after the song, and so Peter was chosen to represent us all. We made it through the song fine, but when Dave came over to talk I sat down on the floor monitor, and from that moment on, forever and ever, I was dubbed ‘enigmatic.’ What a crackup. Meh!”

They played two songs…this one is at the 7:10 mark.

So Central Rain (I’m Sorry)

Did you never call? I waited for your call
These rivers of suggestion are driving me away
The trees will bend, the cities wash away
The city on the river there is a girl without a dream
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry

Eastern to Mountain, third party call, the lines are down
The wise man built his words upon the rocks
But I’m not bound to follow suit
The trees will bend, the conversation’s dimmed
Go build yourself another home, this choice isn’t mine
I’m sorry, I’m sorry

Did you never call? I waited for your call
These rivers of suggestion are driving me away
The ocean sang, the conversation’s dimmed
Go build yourself another dream, this choice isn’t mine
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry

REM – Superman …. 80’s Underground Mondays

I was surprised back when I found out that REM didn’t write this song. This song was originally recorded by a late 60’s band from Beaumont, Texas called The Clique, who released it as the B-side of their only Top 40 hit… “Sugar On Sunday.” The song was written by the group’s producer Gary Zekley along with Elliot Bottler, Mitchell Bottler and Brandon Chase.

The Clique didn’t have massive success in the charts but they toured nationally with popular acts, including Tommy James and The Shondells, Grand Funk Railroad, Brooklyn Bridge, and The Dave Clark Five. They had a brief reunion in 2008.

I like the Clique’s version of this also. It has a psychedelic vibe to it which is cool. REM stuck close to the original. Mike Mills the bass player is singing lead on this song because Michael Stipe refused to play it in concert. He told a London crowd in 2008 “We’re definitely not doing that one” after a fan request in 2008.

The scratchy spoken intro is credited to a Japanese pull-string Godzilla doll. Translated loosely from the Japanese, it says, “This is a special news report. Godzilla has been sighted in Tokyo Bay. The attack on it by the Self-Defense Force has been useless. He is heading towards the city. Aaaaaaaaagh….”

The song was on the album Life’s Rich Pageant released in 1986. Superman peaked at #17 in the Mainstream Rock Charts. The album peaked at #21 in the Billboard Album Charts, #39 in Canada, #24 in New Zealand, and #43 in the UK.

From Songfacts

This is a slightly stalkerish song about a guy who sees himself as Superman. He believes he can “see right through” the girl (presumably using his X-ray vision) so he knows that she doesn’t really love the guy she’s with. Where it gets a little creepy is when he threatens to find her even if she’s “a million miles away.”

It’s all in good fun though. R.E.M. don’t take it too seriously – Mike Mills sang lead on the track instead of Michael Stipe.

311 covered this song at one of their Halloween shows. Lead singer Nick Hexum dressed up as… you guessed it… Superman. On their DVD Enlarged To Show Detail 2, you can see them practicing it in the bus before the show, and then you see them perform it in concert. 311 site R.E.M. as one of their major influences. Hexum and Doug “S.A.” Martinez have both commented on their love of R.E.M.

Superman

I am, I am, I am Superman and I know what’s happening
I am, I am, I am Superman and I can do anything

You don’t really love that guy you make it with now, do you?
I know you don’t love that guy ’cause I can see right through you

I am, I am, I am Superman and I know what’s happening
I am, I am, I am Superman and I can do anything

If you go a million miles away I’ll track you down, girl
Trust me when I say I know the pathway to your heart

I am, I am Superman and I know what’s happening
I am, I am, I am Superman and I can do anything

I am, I am, I am Superman and I know what’s happening
I am, I am, I am Superman and I can do anything

REM – Drive

Whenever I hear this song… I think of David Essex’s song Rock On. It makes sense…Michael Stipe wrote this as a tribute to Rock On.

They recorded a demo version of this song at John Keane Studios, a favorite place for the band to work in their hometown of Athens, Ga. Before the bulk of the Automatic for the People sessions were to take place in March and April, the group spent a little more than a week in New Orleans, playing and recording in Daniel Lanois’ Kingsway Studio.

The ended up recording a complete demo of the song in New Orleans they would use as the basis of the song.

Automatic For the People was released in 1992. The album title comes from a sign at “Weaver D’s Delicious Fine Foods” diner in Athens, Georgia. It read, “Delicious Fine Foods – Automatic For The People.” The diner was near the university in Athens, and was a regular hangout for Stipe and his friends in the band’s early days.

The song peaked at #28 in the Billboard 100, #7 in Canada, #11, and #5 in New Zealand in 1992.

Michael Stipe: There were, before Punk, a few songs that resonated with me. One was David Essex’s ‘Rock On.’ ‘Drive’ is a homage to that. It was the first song I wrote on computer. Before, I had a typewriter. The reason is my handwriting changes dramatically day to day. I don’t trust it. I will write one of the best lyrics ever and discard it because the handwriting looks like s–t. Or the handwriting looks good but it’s a crap lyric, lo and behold, it’s in the song. Too late.”

Mike Mills about the video: “I’m not much of a symbolist. There’s something messianic about being passed over the heads of the people like that, and yet we’re anything but messiahs. That was always a strange thing to me. I mean, yes, they get to touch you, but at the same time they’re holding you up like a saint.”

Michael Stipe: “The other interesting thing about that video was what happened backstage,” he added. “We shot it in Los Angeles with a thousand people as extras. River Phoenix came, hang out in the trailer. We had a great time, until Oliver Stone showed up. I think they had both been drinking, and they got in a fist fight in my trail (gaffaws heartily). I think River won, to tell you the truth. I know he did, in fact.”

From Songfacts

The central lyric, “Hey kids, rock n’ roll,” was borrowed from “Rock On” by David Essex. The words may be the same, but the mood is completely different. This is a much more somber song.

Lead singer Michael Stipe explained in the November 12, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone: “

Guitarist Peter Buck used a nickel as a guitar pick for the mid-song guitar solo to get a sharper sound. He overdubbed the track six times.

There is a line in the song that goes, “Smack, crack, bushwhacked.” This can be seen as an indictment of then-U.S. President George Bush (the first one). Lead singer Michael Stipe had taken out ads in college newspapers in 1988 saying, “Don’t Get Bushwhacked. Get out and vote. Vote Dukakis.” They weren’t very effective.

This was released two months before the national election between George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Clinton won that one, but eight years later Bush’s son became president. When the younger Bush ran for re-election in 2004, R.E.M. performed concerts to benefit his opponent, John Kerry.

This song has no chorus. That doesn’t happen very often in hit songs.

This was the first single released off the album. It was issued a few days before the album came out.

At live shows, R.E.M. played a funk-rock version of this song because its ambient atmosphere was difficult to duplicate. This version appears on a 1993 benefit album for Greenpeace called Alternative NRG.

Director Peter Care shot the black-and-white music video at Sepulveda Dam in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles. The clip mostly has Stipe crowdsurfing as he performs the song.

The implication was unclear; is the audience protecting him, or ready to tear him apart? Stipe told Mojo it was both. “It’s everything. I’m about to be devoured.”

Drive

Smack, crack, bushwhacked
Tie another one to the racks, baby
Hey kids, rock and roll
Nobody tells you where to go, baby

What if I ride, what if you walk?
What if you rock around the clock?
Tick-tock, tick-tock
What if you did, what if you walk?
What if you tried to get off, baby?

Hey, kids, where are you?
Nobody tells you what to do, baby
Hey kids, shake a leg
Maybe you’re crazy in the head, baby

Maybe you did, maybe you walked
Maybe you rocked around the clock
Tick-tock, tick-tock
Maybe I ride, maybe you walk
Maybe I drive to get off, baby

Hey kids, shake a leg
Maybe you’re crazy in the head, baby
Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, Ollie
Ollie, Ollie in come free, baby
Hey, kids, where are you?
Nobody tells you what to do, baby

Smack, crack, shack-a-lack
Tie another one to your backs, baby
Hey kids, rock and roll
Nobody tells you where to go, baby

Maybe you did, maybe you walk
Maybe you rock around the clock
Tick-tock, tick-tock
Maybe I ride, maybe you walk
Maybe I drive to get off, baby

Hey kids, where are you?
Nobody tells you what to do, baby
Hey kids, rock and roll
Nobody tells you where to go, baby
Baby
Baby