No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 25: R.E.M. - Lifes Rich Pageant

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

If you were to plot R.E.M's path from underground buzz to household name, their fourth studio album Lifes Rich Pageant was the turning point. Coming out of a miserable recording experience in London with Fables of the Reconstruction in 1985, the band heads back to the states and are determined to inject some energy and creativity back into their music. The result is the loud, invigorating, and often spontaneous fourth album. R.E.M. did a lot of interesting things on this album, utilizing banjos, organs, and pianos, all while maintaining both the edge and the softness of their brand of alt rock that would soon propel Michael Stipe and co. to mainstream mega-stardom. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/music-review-rem-lifes-rich-pageant Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. You know, there's a million ways to tell a story, and if you're going to sing a love song, it doesn't always have to say, I love this girl for this reason. It can be a bit more oblique.

And sometimes it's just confused with people, and sometimes people aren't used to hearing a rock and roll song where they don't have it spelled out for them. That's okay. This record is a lot more direct. So it's maybe a little bit more about the world outside of us rather than personal things. And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records.

My name is Travis Self. With me, as always is my brother, Q, up in Washington. Here I am. there he is and that was mr peter buck guitar player of r em in a nineteen eighty six interview where he was talking about sort of the the way that they approached the lyrics and the music for their album life's rich pageant which had just released one at the time of that interview. And yeah, so basically, as he kind of alluded to there, the music on this album is about sort of the world around them, like they were saying. A lot of these songs are kind of political

and like not so much about personal things, like he said. But we're going to get into all of that later. First, I want to ask you, what are your thoughts, what are your experiences with R.E.M. in general as a band. So all positive thoughts, my bro, for sure. For the most part, most of the music of theirs that I've heard, I've enjoyed. What are some of those songs that you heard? So, yeah, growing up, I guess imitation of life was probably the first song of theirs that I heard, you know, that I actually listened to when it was new.

You know what I mean? Like before that, I'm sure it was End of the World as we know it. Is that the name of the song? Am I just assuming that's the name of the song? That's the name of it. Yeah. Okay.

And losing my religion. But all those songs came out before we were born, I believe. Or at least before we, I could ever have actually made a memory of hearing it. But I remember actually hearing imitation of live on the radio. So that came out in 2001. Okay. That was on their album, Reveal.

So we were 14 when that came out. I remember seeing the music video for it and seeing them on either S&L or maybe Conan. It may have even been total overcross live, too. It was 2001. Yeah. Yeah. But, no, I like R.E.M. a lot. Their first album, Murmur I got into.

What's the first song on their radio for Europe? Yeah. Yeah, I did. I like that stuff. So, but this, so this album that we're covering today, I'm not familiar with at all. Okay, so this is their fourth album. So like you said, Murmer was their first. That came out in 1983. Reckoning was the second album, came out in 1984.

Reckoning's good, too. Yeah, it's great. And then Fables of the Reconstruction was the next one came out in 85. And then when we're talking about today, Life Switch Pageant came out in 86. If you look at their first five records, it's, it's, it's, crazy because it was literally a record every year from 83 to 87.

So they were hugely prolific in the 80s. And then, four years later, in 1991, they came out with out of time, which really kind of propelled them into like the mainstream. That was the album that had

losing my religion on it, which was a mega, mega huge hit at the time. That's a really good song. Yeah. So anyway, Life's Rich Paget as I talked about. Actually, you know what? Let's pause on that before we get into it. Before we get too ahead of ourselves.

And let's do our weekly segment, what you heard. And Q, do you want to go first? Or do you want me to go first? Mine really can't tie in to REM whatsoever. It's in a whole different building as far as genres are concerned. So maybe it would make more sense for me to go first.

I'm not sure what you're reading. Mine does neither, but, yeah, let's have you go first this time. Okay. So, yeah. this week and last week as well. So I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not, but my company shuts down for two weeks, starting on Thursday of next week.

So leading up to that, obviously we have a ton of work to do. We have a bunch of projects that we've got to button up. And so another developer and myself have essentially taken over one of the meeting rooms for the last two weeks and just like buckle down and really worked hard to get something done. and we just so happen to like the exact same type of music as far as like

I'm gonna be really niche here and this is funny because it has nothing to do with my pick for the day but we like video game soundtracks right Q you know this about me oh yeah he also likes sort of like down tempo type stuff or like you know

electronic music of any type really So I was playing Some Massive Attack Just randomly And I admit that I have never really Listened to this album all the way through Until last week, really And it's

What album? It's called mezzanine It came out in 1998 It's the... No, that's like their biggest one That's their... Yeah, that's their biggest... Almost well-known.

Yeah, I think so. It's the album art that I always associate with Massive Attack, right? Same. Yeah. What is that? It looks like some sort of bug.

Yeah. Blown up picture of a bug. It's definitely a bug. I wish I could name it off the top of my head because I feel like I should know the name of that bug. So I remember my first sort of like association with massive attack was actually this movie that came out in 2005 called Stay. And it has Ryan Gosling, Naomi Watts.

A1 McGregor. Yeah, that is a powerful film. What a great film. What a great fucking film. Anyway, there's great music in that film. And one of the songs, it's playing in a, like a club bar that this guy walks into,

is track one on mezzanine called Angel. Anyway, Massive Attack is sort of, you know, they were at the early origins of, like, trip hop. And that's sort of more, it's really dark sounds and like, you know, it merges like hip hop and like soul and dub with like trip hop and all this kind of stuff. Really pretty vocals too.

Yeah. Oh yeah. And you're going to hear that. Like showcased a lot. You're going to hear that in this song. What's interesting to me is the way that the two vocalists are really like stark opposites of each other. But yeah, the two vocalists that are on this track, the female vocalist is Elizabeth Fraser and the male vocalist is Robert Del Naha. Might be pronouncing that wrong.

Anyway, they have very, very different, starkly different singing styles. And I think it really, like, helps with the way that, the vice. that these songs have because she almost sings almost like, like, not like operatic, but I mean like very like traditional style like of singing. Anyway, let's just play the track. This is track 10. It's called Group 4 and we're going to jump into about the middle of the

song just so you can kind of hear a verse and a chorus. So anyway, here we go. It's really sweet. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, man. That's like a Tosca with with some. stored a guitar thrown in. Yeah, I would definitely throw massive attack into the same building, at least, as like a Toska.

And it's got that slow, gradual build, like any good down tempo song. Right, yeah. And what's great about... It's very repetitive, but it's worth paying attention to. Yeah, and you saw right there, you know, a lot of the songs on this album kind of give you the same kind of thing where it's like, you know, like I said, his vocals are kind of like, they've got some attitude to him, I guess. Yeah, I guess it's almost, you know, on the verge of rapping, but not really. And then like it had that big section there before her vocals came in where it was just instrumental. You know, he had some guitar work in the background.

And then she comes in. And then she comes in with this really like dreamy. Almost like Bjork or like the kind of vocals you'd hear on, oh man, this is probably going to age us big time. But you remember pure moods, right? Oh. Is that like the infomercial? Yes, it was that compilation. Are you saying like an inya kind of thing?

Like inia, yeah, that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so that's that. I've been listening to a bunch of just like, you know, instrumental stuff or things like this, which are more like laid back and whatnot. So it'll be nice to segue into REM here in a little bit. But first, let's do your pick for the week, Q.

So I've been starting alphabetical. going through my, I guess, older records that I own, you know, ones that I've picked up at thrift stores. Not my new stuff, you know, not new artists, but just the old kind of random stuff that I always kind of go through it and then relisten to the albums all the way through and see if I enjoy them, you know, if I want to keep them on the shelf or not. and I came across this album I kind of forgot about owning. It was just a goodwill find.

This American guitarist who goes, his name is Al D. Miola. Have you ever heard of him? Yeah, actually I have. Yeah, so he's a, I would put him in the like Pat Mathini category. Okay. Jazz Fusion, you know, there were a lot of art. artists like this around the 70s, like Jeff Beck. Yeah.

I can't think of, Rory Clark, not Roy Clark, something Clark. Maybe it is Rourke Clark. Well, what album do you have? So I have an album of his called Elegant Gypsy. Okay. His second studio album came out in 1977. Really cool stuff. So it's jazz fusion.

It's pretty weird. wide ranging from song to song. Like I think the last song on side A is just very, very traditional Spanish guitar kind of music. But the song I'm going to play is the first track on the album. It's really cool. Kind of threw me off guard, you know, because I'd forgotten about it. It's a really, really cool track. So this is, again, his name is Al.

Di Miola. This is a song off of his 1977 record Elegant Gypsy. It's called Flight Over Rio. That may be the first jazz fusion on No Filler. No, dude, Pat Mathini. Ah, good point. But the song was more like ambient, I guess, you know, the one that we played. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So drummer on that track was Steve Gad, who played on. Asia for Steely Dan Really? Yeah Interesting Just on that track Yeah okay

Well he plays in there's one other track on this album that he plays Okay yeah yeah Trams up cool So cute When you saw that I'm guessing you just picked that up based on the cover art or what Yes Yeah okay

Yeah because I mean What's funny Are you looking at his Discography right now? I can be. Look at the album art for Land of the Midnight Sun, because I would pick that up in a hot minute if I saw that at a record. Hell yeah.

Because that looks fucking awesome. But now that I know about the guy, I'm definitely picking it up. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's cool. All right, so let's talk about REM and specifically the album that we are covering today, which would be Life's Rich Pageant, which came out in 1986. So basically, I feel like REM is similar to talking heads in a lot of ways as far as like how they came into like the mainstream. Because they, now they're not, I wouldn't put them in the same group of like the genre.

Their genres aren't really the same because like we talked about talking heads. they were more grouped into a new wave. They were kind of considered like sort of the founders of new wave, you know? Right. REM has always been alternative rock, right? Like, you could almost say that they were the,

sort of at the forefront of alt rock. And like, we know that they were hugely influential to grunge bands of the 90s. Kirk Cobain specifically always talked about Michael Stipe and R.M. as being mega huge influences on him. I had no idea. Yeah, yeah.

Like, it's, there's even, I was watching some interviews or some documentary about Kirk Cobain. And Michael Stipe, as in the lead singer of R.E.M. said that he was talking with, like before, right before Kirk Cobain died, like he was planning to, and like in talks with, with Kurt. to do like a collaboration together. And like he was doing that specifically to try to give him something to like grasp on to, you know, because everybody was kind of worried about him at the time because he was depressed and all this kind of stuff. Oh, man.

So like God knows how that would have been, you know, if they collaborated together. Wow. But anyway. So, yeah, R.E.M. at the time that they came out and like basically up to up to this album, they were sort of your classic like cult following college. radio success kind of rock band you know getting sort of this this following and they've always had you know when you think about r em an r em song and when you think about michael stipe like they're kind of known for his lyrics are kind of nonsensical i guess or like sometimes

they're kind of known for being like not they don't necessarily make sense or they're more like metaphorical and like especially when you think of the lyrics on it's the end of the world yeah sure exactly I wonder if if we could compare him to oh man what's the singer what's the singer's name

the shins it Tim Mercer Mercer yeah Mercer yeah Rob Mercer um Tim Mercer um something Mercer yeah let me look at it

I could see that I never ever put those two and two together, but... James Mercer. James Mercer. Yeah, just where, you know, some people will say, oh, it's a little too highbrow, like, oh.

It's almost like he would just, he will go about assuming that his audience knows what he's talking about. Yeah, there's a, there's a referencing, a novelist or something, like, you know, like, yeah, sure. Like the famous line that everyone knows, Leonard Bernstein, you know?

Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. There's a little bit of that. for sure. Yeah, Mercer does that kind of stuff. Yeah. And at least in the early shins. Yeah. Music.

But another reason I'm kind of comparing him to, to David Byrne, at least, is that it sounds like Michael Cyple's also very, like, socially awkward when it came to, like, interviews and stuff. Yeah, you could kind of, you can kind of pick that up. Yeah. And there's even, I was reading an interview, a 2011 interview. that he did with the Guardian, where he even talked about that, where he said, so this guy who interviewed him,

his name is Sean O'Hagan, so he's a writer for the Observer, I guess. I guess it was published in The Observer, but I stumbled upon it on the Guardian website. Anyway, he had interviewed him like three times throughout his career, and like the first interview that he had with him was in 1988, which was when they came out with their sixth album, Green. And he was just saying that, like, you know, he would,

he answers questions, but like in like really short bursts of words, you know. And sometimes they don't even have anything to do with the question. And Michael says that he says, I still hadn't learned how to talk or how to look someone in the eye and finish a thought. I'm much better at that now, but I'll carry that with me my whole life, the massive insecurity of not being articulate. I feel like, especially...

So he's way in his head, then, in his own head. Right, exactly. And like, there was the interview, it was the clip that I played that entered us into our Talking Heds episode. That was from a video interview. And we watched that interview,

like you can tell that David Byrne is super uncomfortable. He's not making eye contact with the interviewer very soft-spoken. like you can tell kind of the same same kind of thing but anyway it's interesting to me when somebody's like that and then you you see them on stage and they're super eccentric

like Michael Stipe is super super eccentric on stage always has been like flailing around he doesn't play guitar and I think so it's just him in the microphone and then you the lyrics are really always like you know very like confident and whatnot but anyway

so from what I from what I've read the album that came out before this one called Fables of the Reconstruction has sort of a murkier is kind of the word that I've seen a couple times to describe it and I would agree with that

like not very energetic sort of like subdued songs on it and they recorded for the first time they recorded overseas. They recorded in London, this album. Apparently it was like cold and rainy the whole time.

And like that affected sort of the mood. And like it came out on the album, you know. They weren't, they weren't, you know, they were held up in the studio. Like they didn't go out very much because the weather was so horrible. It kind of reminds me of how, you know, we talked about Alison Chains' album, Dirt on our first episode, how the L.A. riots kind of affected. Yeah, they were right down the street. Their overall feeling and sound of the album.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so overall, like, it's sort of well known that they weren't too happy, at least at the time, they weren't too happy with the album itself. They've gone on to say that

it's actually become, like, one of their favorite albums like in retrospect. But they're saying that, like, you know, even like Mike Mills, which is the bass player, is quoted tons of times of saying like, oh yeah, it sucks, you know. Just like, that's his response to

oh, what do you think about? Fables of the Reconstruction. Oh, it sucks. So, like, they weren't happy with it. Probably because they just had a bad experience recording it. And they didn't really like the experience they had with the producer, who was a new producer

for them, a guy by the name of Joe Boyd, who was actually sort of known for his work with more English folk musicians, including Nick Drake, which is a pretty big deal. deal, right? Oh. Yeah, that's a big deal. But, so that's why they went with, they went with him.

But they just, in the end, they just didn't, they weren't, they weren't too happy with the way that it sounded. But anyway, like, when you listen, when you listen to that album, like, there's some great songs on there, no doubt about it. But it does have a sort of, like, somber vibe throughout the album. So anyway, when it comes time to record Life's Rich Pageant, they come back to the United States. And they choose another producer, again, a new guy named Don Jemman, who had recorded a lot of John Mellencamp's albums. And so basically the way they said is that they kind of liked the sounds of the acoustic guitar on those Mellencamp albums. And they wanted to sort of get that sound, you know, because they weren't getting that with the way that the previous record turned out.

like these really rich guitar and like whatnot. So anyway, the big thing that I want, Q that I want you to pay attention to especially, is the drumming on this album because it marks a huge change in the way that he drums. And there's, I was reading the, the pitch report review of, they wrote a review for this album

when the 25th anniversary edition came out. The guy says, and this is so true, he goes, in addition to giving the melodic leads their own space, he emphasizes the muscle and Barry's beats and the intricate interaction between the rhythm section. So, as he says here,

no wonder the drummer's on the album cover. So yeah, if you look at the album cover, and this is something that I wanted to talk about. Actually, first, you know, at first, let's play the first song. Oh, good call. Okay. Yeah, so let's play the first song.

So just know that coming out of the recording session and the album, Fables Reconstruction, Fables of the Reconstruction, they wanted to sort of change the, get a change of pace. And that's why they went back to America. And that's why this album sounds so energetic and so like it sounds like it sounds like, it sounds louder and it sounds more confident. Like they just, they wanted to, to get back and sort of do more, more energetic songs. And that's what this is. So this first track that we're going to play is actually track one.

It's called Begin the Begin. So that's an interesting song structure. Yeah. It seems like, it's like you're expecting like a transition of some kind. And it just keeps going, like just keeps going and going and going as far as. like the same kind of it almost seems like the verse just keeps going yeah so that's interesting you say that do because um according to peter buck which is a guitar player he said that when they started to write the song at least the music for it they sat down and wanted to create a as he says

a crazy song with no repetition except for the riff so like that yeah they were going for that kind of like doesn't follow the standard sort of like song structure, right? So anyway, like I said before we played this clip, the drummer, and let me just go through the roster real quick because we haven't done that yet, but the drummer's name is Bill Berry. And you also have Peter Buck on guitars, which I said, Mike Mills on bass, and Mike Mills also sings a lot of the backup vocals, which has always been a favorite.

aspect of REM songs, to me at least, is his backing vocals. And then Michael Stipe, of course, lead singer. So that's the core group. That's the founding members. So anyway, Bill Berry, the drummer, is the forehead and the eyeballs that you see on the record cover. And it gets cut... Yeah, it cuts his face off at the nose.

It cuts off with the nose. And below that is a very subtle picture of two buffaloes. And so that's kind of like a... Oh, yeah. like a Buffalo Bill, I guess, is what they're trying to say. I don't know. But when you listen to a lot of the songs, they are talking about, and this song in particular,

this is, like I said, this is a very political album. And they're talking a lot about, this song in particular is about sort of the founding fathers of the country. And the next song that we play also, very much so, about just sort of the original. original genocide, I guess, of like the Indians and shit. But we'll get into that next. Native Americans.

Native Americans. I think it's what you meant to say, brother. Sorry. So anyway, here's the, here's some lyrics from this. And this kind of alludes to what you're talking about with, uh, what's the guy of Mercer? James Mercer. With James Mercer.

Or even talking heads, David Byrne, or even freaking Donald Fingham. I was thinking Bob Dylan, man. Yeah. Or you're just like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, so listen to this. But that's the thing, though. It's very obvious what he's talking about here. But anyway, here's the first verse.

Bertie in the hand for life's rich demand. The insurgency began and you missed it. I looked for it and I found it. Miles Standish proud congratulate me. A philanderer's tie, a murderer's shoe. So Miles Standish, I had no idea who Miles Standish was, but that's a person. And he was like on the Mayflower, basically. Oh, got it.

Yeah. So he was like, he was a military officer hired by the Pilgrims as an advisor for the Plymouth colony. So like literally the first colony in America, right? So he's saying Miles Standish, proud, congratulate me for like, basically taking over the land or whatever. And like the second verse, life's rich demand creates supply in the hand of the powers, the only vote that matters.

As in like life's bounty or whatever, supply, all we're doing is giving power to the wealthy or whatever by just buying all this shit. That's what he's getting at. So anyway, but I don't know if you if you don't know how the earlier

REM song sounded you may not really pick up on how much like how interesting the drum sound compared to what came before it right? Like the drumming was more straightforward on their earlier stuff and in this album like what they were saying

it's like it's no surprise that he's on the album cover you know. Yeah. But anyway, something that... What's interesting is... So this album is kind of the first one that got them to sort of start to get mainstream,

and then it really took off with out of time a few years later. But so much of this album contradicts like sort of the standard formula for a very mainstream popular music act, right? So like the album cover is an example of that. they and they apparently rm does this a lot uh there's no apostrophe in the word life's on like the name of this album right life's rich pageant

well that's not the name of this album yeah it is oh yeah it is take that out brother for some reason i was thinking of the so there's no there's no apostrophe if you look at the back of the album cover which i'm looking at right now the songs are out of order but like not out of order

like the numbers are out of order the song tracks don't match up with the track list which back in the 80s must have been confusing as fuck right dude but anyway so they're just they're trolling

yeah I guess are they purposely trying to to make sure they don't reach the mainstream so here's what's interesting and I didn't make this connection until right now on the left side And I'll have to post a picture on the show notes of this episode on the websites. You guys can see what I'm talking about. So on the left side, begin to begin actually is listed as track one. But the track below it is hyena, which is not track two.

That's actually, I think, like it looks like it's track five. Yeah, track five, exactly. But on the right side of the back of the album, you have on the left side, the tracks out of order. But on the left side, there's a bunch of squares, almost like checkboxes. And next to these checkbox is like two or three words from each of the song. So I'm guessing this is the right order over here, but with a lyric from the song. Because the first box, I found it, Miles Standish Proud. That's from track one.

So it's almost like they want you to like listen and pay attention to the lyrics and then come in and fill out the track record. the way it's supposed to be. That's kind of cool. It is cool. Because they're almost like, pay attention to the lyrics. You know? That's what we want you to associate with,

like, the track list is like, like listen to the fucking words, you know. But anyway, that's my guess. I could be way off, but I bet you that's exactly what they did.

But anyway, that's obviously sort of weird, right? That's not something that most bands do. Put the songs out of order. What's funny is, so I bought the record, the vinyl,

and I remember I was like, wait, this isn't right. Like, I knew it wasn't right because I was so used to seeing the track listing in the correct order, you know? Yeah. So anyway, let's move on. Dude, hang on. Have you looked, have you looked it up, man? Maybe you've got, maybe you've got like a really rare pressing. No, no, no, no.

That's perp. That's, no, no, no, no, dude. Plus, this is a, my mind would have jumped straight to that. This is a fucking reissue anyway. This is a reprinting of it. Anyway, so stuff like that, right? They did weird things like that. That doesn't align with, and not to mention like political songs, right?

What's funny is that same interview that I was reading off the quote from Michael Stipe from The Guardian that he did in 2011. He was talking about how they started to gain popularity. It's sort of very similar to, it seems like, the way that, that, um, Tom York was dealing with the success that they got on OK computer. Yes. He says that here's a quote for Michael Stipe. I had to grapple with a lot of contradictions back in the 80s. I would look out from the stage at the Reagan youth, as in Ronald Reagan, right?

Right. That was when R.M. went beyond the freaks, the fat girls, the art. students and the indie music fanatics. Suddenly we had an audience that included people who would have sooner kicked me on the street than let me walk by unperturbed. I'm exaggerating to make a point, but it was certainly an audience that in the main did not share my political leanings or affiliations and did not like how flamboyant I was as a performer or indeed a sexual creature.

They probably held lots of weird, or right, I'm sorry, they probably held lots of my worldviews in great disregard and I had to look out on that and think well what do I do with that so there you go yeah that's huh I mean that's something you think about but yeah the more famous you get the more likely that you're gonna that your sound you know your music might attract people as fans that you otherwise wouldn't align with politically or, you know, with your worldview or anything. Right. Yeah, you got to kind of struggle with that, you know, as a reality.

Especially, you know, if he's up there singing the strike that we just played to a bunch of Reagan supporters, and he's singing about, you know, supply and demand, give us power to the wealthy as a bad thing. I would think that most people in like a Reagan crowd probably wouldn't agree with that. But there you go. The funny thing about Michael Stipe, he's well known for sort of cryptic lyrics. This isn't so cryptic, but some of his other stuff is where it's like, you know,

you have to really dig into the lyrics. And I bet you a lot of people in the crowd, especially when they became more and more popular, only came to listen to the hits, you know. So they might not even know what he's talking about. Not paying attention to the lyrics. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, let's segue into the next track here. And you're going to see the theme kind of continue as far as like the lyric subject matter is concerned.

But this song, it's got such a great feeling to it. It's very optimistic sounding. His voice kind of is very sort of emotive, I guess. Or like very, like Michael Samp has such a great rock voice. it's like, you know, there's really none of their like it. It seems like he sings in a deeper... He has a pretty wide range. Range.

Yeah. And the earlier stuff, it seems like he sings more on the low end. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, this song is called Coyahoga. Let's put our hands together to find other tribe. Good vibes. That put me in like a...

Autumn, fall, headspace, overcast skies, chilly. What about it put you in that vibe? That mood. I don't know, yeah. Sometimes songs will just put me in a frame of mind, I guess. Just, it just felt like it felt like a, you know, winter coat, warm snuggy gloves kind of song. I don't know, man. What are the lyrics?

I mean, it sounds like he's singing about like a homecoming kind of thing or thinking back to his youth. Yeah. So, okay. So I thought that too when I casually would just pick up on words here and there. Like when I heard this song for the first few times before I really sat down and read the lyrics and sort of knew that this was a more political record, right? So let me read them to you. Let's put our heads together and start a new country up. Our father's father's father tried, erased the parts he didn't like.

Let's try to fill it in. Bank the Quarry River swim. We knee-skinned it, you and me. We knee-skinned that river red. I don't know what that fucking means. The chorus is, this is where we walked. This is where we swam. Take a picture here.

Take a souvenir. So that to me, he's singing about, especially the, this line here, our father's father's father tried, erased the parts he didn't like. That says in like our forefathers he came over here. Erase the parts he didn't like,

meaning took out the Native Americans. Is what he's singing about. Erasing, quote unquote, indigenous people and their culture. And so the chorus to me reads as it's almost like he's going from the perspective of

the indigenous people that used to live here. He says, this is where we walked. This is where we swam. Hold, let me say that again. I keep fucking up. We swam. We swam. We swam. This is where we walked. This is where we swam. Take a picture here. Take a souvenir. As in like this land, you know, that we as Americans are living on now is where indigenous people used to walk and swim and all we do now is they live their lives yeah we show up and like hey look at this great let's take a picture in a fucking souvenir you know right right let's go to the the grand canyon and and grab a fucking magnet or whatever for our refrigerator you know i mean yeah hey so i'm looking at this is off topic a little bit but i'm looking at the wikipedia for this

album and I guess you have a vinyl copy. Yeah. Is side one labeled dinner side and side two supper side? Let me take a looky-lou here. I mean, you've got a re-release, so I don't know if maybe that's just in the original versions, but no, no, no. Hold on. It's, it's, I just wondering if there's any reason.

Yes, yes, you're right. So side A dinner side. Yeah. Dinner and supper. Those are the same, it means the same thing, right? Dinner and supper, this is the same. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

But I think supper is sort of a colloquialism for a certain, I'm guessing a certain part of the country probably says supper. Yeah, maybe. Right. But anyway. It does talk about the incorrect album track listing. Right. Right. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, orders given one, five, ten, eight, two, seven, four, nine, three, eleven.

It leaves out, uh, Superman. Yeah. So interesting. And underneath the bunker. Yeah. So anyway, um, let me read another part of the, the, the, lyrics here. It says, let's put our heads together and start a new country up. Up underneath the riverbed, we'll burn the river down. So Coyahoga is this well-known river in Ohio that was so

notoriously polluted that it caught fire several times in the 50s and 60s. Wow. So that's what saying we'll burn the river down. That's how much we're going to pollute these rivers is that we're going to, they're going to catch on fire. And so like apparently, like, that was one of the fires that led to the founding of the EPA back

in the day. Oh, shit. So like here is, so, you know, this song is sort of like a call to arms or whatever for like activists and stuff. Because he's saying, hey, let's start a new country. We could start, we could start again, you know, like, sort of, you sort of very John and Yoko, you know?

Yeah, sure. Imagine. Right, right, exactly. But anyway, so now I've got to figure out what our next truck's going to be, and that's going to be tough, because I've gone back and forth. But I've got to go with track number 10, which is called Just a Touch.

It was very punk. Yes, it is, Q. And there's a good reason for that. The drummer. especially the drum beat is very punk. Yeah. So here's why. It's got a very punk vibe, right?

This is actually one of the first songs they wrote as a band together. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, and they actually, you know, they had recorded it, you know, before in the past, but they just never put it on an album. So, like, they decided, hey, let's re-record it and put it on this album. So anyway, I don't know if this is 100% factual or not, because I found it on a...

actually a really, really cool blog. It's a blog spot, so it's one of those old blog formats. But it's called the REM Project blog. And this guy sort of went, his goal with this blog was to go album by album and talk about each song as a new post. And his article about this song in particular, he says that it's a story. of the day that Elvis died is the story behind the lyrics. He says, and again, I don't know where this guy got this from, but I'm going to say it because it's a cool story.

He says, according to Michael, as a Michael's type, when he was working as a busboy in St. Louis as a teenager, there was a Elvis impersonator performing at the restaurant. And instead of canceling the show when the death of Elvis was reported, the impersonator who had not heard the news showed up anyway and was perplexed that the audience was made up entirely of women dressed in black because they were mourning, I guess, I don't know.

Oh, my God, yeah. But the poster for the show, for this impersonator, was advertised as, is it Elvis or Just a Touch? And that's the name of the song, Just a Touch. Oh, my God. That's great. So anyway, yeah, cool song. Anyway, I love that they decided to resurrect an old song and throw it on this album. Because like you said, it's definitely it's punk.

Like it's that 80s punk, the early 80s. Yeah, it's great. I wish there's more of that. That's how REM started, though. Like they were in the punk scenes back of the day. When did they actually start? Because murmur doesn't sound like that. No, it doesn't.

They started in 1980. Okay. So murmur was 83, right? Yeah. So you know when they were forming or when they first started and it was probably playing in the garage. whatever, yeah, they're probably playing punk rock, you know. Sure.

But like, if you think about, I always like to think about music in the same way that I like to think about, like, the branches on the evolutionary tree, right? The species or whatever. Like, if you think about the branches of fucking music or whatever, I talked about Talking Heds earlier, both sort of stem from punk rock, right? But then it's like, Talking Heds goes one way on a new branch. Spons the new wave. For new wave.

And then REM starts to. make this other branch that just turns into alt rock, which eventually leads to grunge, you know. So like they all sort of start from punk, right? Yeah. But anyway. That's cool. And then on the other, you know, you got a whole other branch for blues, you know.

Well, yeah. Well, yeah. Well, yeah. They meet together so often. Well, no, I would say the blues is like the fucking trunk of the fucking rock branch. Oh, I guess so, yeah. Or, hey, you know what? maybe gospel music kind of like what we were talking about

an Arkansas Leon episode Yeah, you're right, you're right Yeah, but that's what I'm saying If you keep going back, right, it's like gospel, blues, rock, and then rock branches off and all these other fucking genres. But anyway, so yeah, that song's great, right? But anyway, the reason I play that is, you know,

they just did a lot of really creative things on this album. Like, they threw in a punk rock song. Like if you heard on that song too, I guarantee you this is not the way they used to play it. But there was like a piano in the background. Yeah. You know? An old timey sound and...

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Hockey tongue. Right. And on some of the other songs, there's a song and I almost played it. But you know what? We're going to play. We'll play the opening because it's really only the opening.

It's not something that stays throughout the whole song. But let's play track number eight, just a little bit of it. It's called I Believe Yeah, so you see how that banjo just comes out of nowhere Yeah, that was almost like a separate idea Yeah I mean that song could start with that snare hit To completely take off that banjo

You know Right now play the opening to underneath the bunker Track 6 Okay now what style of music is that I don't know It's almost like a Spanish like You know

It's not like Gypsy What did you say Gypsy? Gypsy Yeah That just came to mind Because I was listening

That Aldi meal Earlier Yeah But anyway Yeah So yeah They're all over the place On this

But what What's funny about that Is that those are the two songs Nope Not take it back I was about to go I was about to Have a theory

I thought those were the Tracks that were left off The track listing on the back But I believe it's not Underneath the bunker was I need the bunker once. So the two songs that, so the last two songs on each side were not featured in the checklist.

Okay, okay. Yeah, interesting. So yeah, a lot of cool things on this album. This sort of got them, it was their most popular album to date. It peaked, I think it peaked it, it says 43 in the UK. But it was their first. gold record hit number 21 on the billboard charts so from then on out it just

became more and more they became more and more popular but anyway what I've always loved about REM you could hear it on some of the tracks the the the backup vocals I've always loved that I think it adds another layer of like Mike Mills is a great vocalist and he he's a bass player he does a great job but they just have a very wide range. They're not afraid to do interesting, different things. The lyrics are always really intriguing.

The way that they put together songs is different. You know, they, you know, they always just craft the songs in ways that you're not expecting, you know. And I think this album is kind of a perfect example of like

they decided, you know, they had such a measurable time recording Fables of the Reconstruction that it feels like just really sort of opened up and like just decided to just have fun and you know that's what this record became and I think uh the producer obviously uh has a lot to do with the way that it sounds you know like the drums just sound like you know loud and confident and like his vocal sound just great you know the guitars are great everything's great so yeah that's that's our um that's our life's rich pageant. I would say it's one of those albums that you need to listen to all the way

through to get a good feel for it. That was just kind of a scratching the surface. But Q, I would say to you, if you like to murmur, you need to listen to their first four albums all the way through. Okay. Yeah, I've heard murmur and I've heard reckoning. Okay, you've heard those two all the way through, yeah. Murmur is great. That's an album that we might circle back to you later at a later date. But, yeah, their first four albums were just amazing. And then, you know, the next album, too. You know, it's funny.

I said for some reason I guess Spotify is missing some of their albums because, yeah, they are. I said that they made an album every year for the first four years of their existence as a band. but that's actually not true. They're actually more prolific than that. They came out with an album from 83 through 88. So for the first six years of their existence, every year they came out with an album.

I mean, that's fucking impressive. Yeah, that's pretty fucking crazy. It's crazy. I think the Beatles were like that. They came out with like multiple albums in the same years. Yeah, I know Marvin Gay was also, extremely prolific in its early years. Yeah, it's just insane.

But anyway. So, to close out, first of all, let's just tee up the next full-length episode. We're going to continue our Radiohead Fest with Amnesiac. And this is, we're nearing the end, I guess, because we're going to end on... No, actually, we've got three left, because we're going to end on in rainbows.

So anyway, we're going to do amnesiac. But in between that, we will have a sidetrack episode. I'm not sure what we're going to cover. But to close out this episode, first, actually, I got, you know what, I just keep getting a hand of myself. Go to our website, no filler podcast.com, where we have show notes for every episode. You can listen to all the episodes. You can find sources for each episode, as well as a track listing.

of every song that we mentioned, including the what you heard and the intros and the outroes and all that good stuff. But anyway, so to close out this episode, the last song on this record, which was also the second single, is called Superman.

And interestingly enough, it is a cover of a song called Superman, of course, by a band called The Click. which came out in 1969. So it's a pretty faithful rendition of the song. It sounds exactly like the REM song,

but we're going to play the Click version. Again, came out in 1969. So again, that is our episode on REM's 1986 album, Life's Rich Pageant. Again, my name is Travis. And my name's Quinn. And we'll talk to you next time. It was the night before the gathering and all through the house.

The host rapid cozy cashmere throw from Home Sense for their spouse. Kids toys for $6.99 under the tree. And crystal glasses for just $14.99 for their brother Lee. A baking dish made in Portugal for Tom and Sue. And a nice $5.99 candle. Perfectly priced just for you. Happy holidays to all. And to all a good price.

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