No Filler Music Podcast - Rewind: REM - Life's Rich Pageant

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Travis is out of town this week, so we're dropping a Rewind episode on you from our first year podcasting back in 2018, where we covered REM's 4th studio album "Life's Rich Pageant". If you were to plot R.E.M's path from underground buzz to household name, their fourth studio album Life's 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. Tracklist: What If We Give It Away? Massive Attack - Group Four Al Di Meola - Flight Over Rio Begin The Begin Cuyahoga Just A Touch The Clique - Superman This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Pantheon is a proud partner of AKG by Harman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Welcome to No Filler. my name's Quentin. My brother, Travis, is out of town this week, so I'm all by my lonesome. And I'm going to bring a rewind episode your way and revisit our episode from way back in December of 2018 when we covered REM's fourth studio album, Life's Rich, pageant from 1986. So over the next few weeks, we're going to be shifting gears going from the 2010s that we've been hanging out in with that kind of dream pop resurgence that we've been covering in the last month. And dive into the Alt College Radio rock that was happening around the mid-80s through the 90s.

Next week we're going to cover Polaris, which is a fictional band that was created for the TV series. series, The Adventures of Pete and Pete. We're going to dive into the music from that show and also cover the music from the actual band. They're called Miracle Legion. And, yeah, lots of great music from that era and from that group. And from the Adventures of Pete and Pete. So we're also going to dive into the, quote, orange years from around that era of Nickelodeon

that Travis and I grew up watching. So that's going to be a lot of fun. And then after that, we're going to cover REM's debut record, murmur. So we thought it'd be good to just kind of take this week off while Travis is out of town, revisit our episode on REM's Life's Rich Pagent, and then we'll be back chatting into your earbuds next week. Also, don't tell Travis, but I'm going to fade us out with Weird Owls Spam, which is a parody on REM's stand. Travis is not a huge fan of weird fan. Travis is not a huge fan of word owl or any kind of comedy style music.

So I'm taking this opportunity to drop one on him. Don't tell him. Maybe he won't notice. All right. Hope you all enjoy this R-A-M'd episode on R-A-M's Life's Rich Pageant. 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 obliq. 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. 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.E.M. in a 1986 interview where he was talking about sort of the way that they approached the lyrics and the music for their album Life's Rich Pageant, which had just released 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 ended 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 actually like made a memory of hearing it. But I remember actually hearing imitation of live on the radio. So that came out in, like, 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 totaled for Cross Live, too. It was 2001. It could have been. Yeah. Yeah. But, no, I like R.M a lot. Their first album, Murmur I got into.

What's the first song on the Radio Free Europe? Yeah. Yeah, I did. I like that stuff. So, but 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 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. This is a really good song. Yeah. So anyway, life's rich pageant, 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. Mine does neither, but yeah, let's have you go first. Okay. So 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 to get something done.

And we just so happen to like the exact same type of music as far as like, I'm going to 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. No, that's like their biggest one.

That's their... Yeah, that's their biggest... You're most well-known. Yeah, I think so. It's the album art that I always associate with massive attack, Right. Same. Yeah. What is that? Like a... It looks like some sort of bug. Some... 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, um, I remember my first sort of like association with massive attack was actually, uh, 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 showcased a lot you're going to hear that in this song what's 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 vibe 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 four 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 that was really sweet Yeah, it's awesome, right?

Yeah, man. That's like a moody or Tosca with some stored a guitar thrown in. Yeah, I would definitely throw massive attack into the same building, at least, as like a Tosca. And it's got that slow, gradual build, like any good down tempo song. Right, yeah. And what's great about it. It's very repetitive, but it's worth paying attention to. Yeah, and you saw right there, you know, a lot of the songs.

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 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.

Yeah. 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 the infomercial yes it was that are you saying like an in you kind of thing like in yeah that yeah yeah that kind of stuff yeah yeah anyway um 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 and what now so it'll be nice to segue into r em here in a little bit but First, let's do your pick for the week, Q.

So I've been starting alphabetically 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've, I always kind of go through it and then re-listen 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 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 Rour 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 it's it's jazz fusion it's um it's pretty wide ranging from song to song um like i think the last song on side a is just very very traditional Spanish guitar kind of music

um but the song i want 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 D. 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 in. 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 Down. Really? Yeah.

Interesting. Just on that track. Yeah, okay. Well, he plays in this one other track on this album that he plays. Okay, yeah, yeah. Drum's 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 all rock and like we know that they were hugely influential to grunge band 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 REM said that he will. was talking with, like before, right before Kirk Cobain died, like he was planning to, and like in talks with Kurt to do like a collaboration together. And like he was doing that specifically to try to give him something to like grasp onto, you know, because everybody was kind of worried about him

at the time because he was depressed and all this kind of stuff. And oh man. So like God knows how that would have been, you know, if they collaborated together. Wow. But anyway. So yeah, REM. 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 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 not 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 we could compare him to, oh man, what's the singer? What's the singer's name? The Shins? Is it Tim Mercer? Yeah. Mercer, yeah. Rob Mercer?

Mm-hmm. Tim Mercer? Something Mercer, yeah. Let me look at it. I could see that. I'd 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... If he's referencing a novel. list 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 and yeah and at least in the early shins yeah music but another another reason i'm kind of comparing him to to uh David Byrne at least is that um it sounds like Michael Cyples also very like socially awkward when it came to like interviews and stuff. Yeah, 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. the 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 Heads episode. That was from a video interview and we watch that interview, like you can tell that David Byrne is super uncomfortable, he's not making contact with the interviewer very soft-spoken, like you can tell

kind of the same kind of thing. But anyway, it's interesting to me when somebody's like that, and then you see them on stage and they're super eccentric, like Michael Stipe is super, eccentric on stage. Always has been like flailing around. He doesn't play guitar, I think, so it's just him in the microphone. And then

the lyrics are really always like you know, very, like, confident and whatnot. But anyway, so from what I've read, the album that came out before this one called Fables of the Reconstruction has sort of a, like 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.

Okay. 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 kind of reminds me of how. How, you know, we talked about Allison Chain's album, Dirt on our first episode,

how the L.A. riots kind of affected. Yeah, they were right down the street. The overall feeling and sound of the album. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so overall, like, it's sort of well known that they weren't, they aren'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. in retrospect. But they're saying that like, you know, even like Mike Mills, which is the

bass player, is quoted tons of times as 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, 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 Ritz Pagin, they come back to the United States,

they choose another producer, again, a new guy named Don Gemmon, 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 Melanchamp albums and they wanted to sort of get that sound you know because they weren't getting that with the way that the previous worker turned out like these really rich guitar and like whatnot so anyway the big thing that I want

cue that I want you to pay attention to especially is the drumming on this album because it's a it marks a huge change in the way that drums. And I was reading the pitchpork 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 louder and it sounds more confident. Like they just, they wanted 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 story. 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, dude, because 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, 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 R.M. 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. cuts off of 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 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, what's the guy of the Mercer? James Mercer With James Mercer Or even Talking heads David Byrne Or even freaking

Donald Fager I was thinking Bob Dylan man Yeah So you're just like What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah so listen to this 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 on the Mayflower basically 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 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 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, right? like the drumming was more straightforward on their earlier stuff and in this album like like what they were seeing it's like it's no it's no surprise that he's on the album cover you know yeah uh 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 like 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 there's no apostrophe in the word lives on like the name of this album right lives rich pageant they well that's not the name of this album Yeah, it is Oh yeah, it is Take that out, brother For the reason I was thinking of the So 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 so. Are they purposely trying 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, on the side, 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 there's squares like check almost like checkboxes and next these checkbox is like a two or three words from each of the song so I'm 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. That 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 listen to. 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, that's, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, it did. Plus, this is a, my mind,

would have jumped straight to that. This is a fucking reissue anyway. This is a reprinting. Oh. Of it. Anyway. So, stuff like that,

right? They did, they did weird things like that. That, that wouldn't, that doesn't align with, and not to mention like political song, right?

What's funny is, uh, 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 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.E.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 wait, 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, you know, but, you know, Yeah, the more famous you get, the more likely that you're going to, 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, if he's, you know, if he's.

up there singing the track 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 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 other like it it seems like he sings in a deeper he has a pretty wide range range

yeah and his in the earlier stuff it seems like he sings more on the low end yeah yeah so anyway this song is called Coya Hoga Let's put our heads together Country up The father

Or the sky She didn't like Let's try Take up the souvenir This land That put you in Like a Autumn

In like a autumn Fall Headspace Overcast skies 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 felt like it felt like a you know winter coat warm snuggy gloves kind of song I don't know man did you put 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 I so I so I I thought that too when I casually would just pick up on words here and there. Like when I heard this song, the first few times before I really sat down, I read the lyrics. It 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 Corrie 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 says 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 this line here

Our father's father's father tried Erase the parts he didn't like That says in like our forefathers He came over here. Erased the parts he didn't like, meaning took out the Native Americans. Is what he's singing about. Yeah. Erasing, quote unquote, indigenous people and their culture.

Yeah. 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, 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 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 Grand Canyon and grab a fucking magnet or whatever for our refrigerator. You know what 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 look you look at here. I mean, you've got a re-release. So I don't know if maybe that's just a little bit. in the original versions. No, no, no. Hold on. It's, it's, I'm 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, supper time. Yeah, maybe. But anyway. It does talk about the incorrect album track listing. Right. notes. Right. Yeah, 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 lyrics here. Uh, it says, um, 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 he's saying we'll burn the river down. That's how much we're going to pollute these rivers is that 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, 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, start again, you know, like. Yeah, it's 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. to be and that's going to be tough because I've gone back and forth. But I 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, it was very punk. Yeah. So here's why. It's a, got a very punk vibe, right? This is actually one of the first songs they wrote as a band together.

And so 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 like 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 a mourning, I guess. I don't know. 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. I liked it, man. Yeah, it's great. 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. The 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 or whatever.

Yeah, they were 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? species or whatever. Like, if you think about the branches of fucking music or whatever, I talked about Talking Hedge earlier, both sort of stem from punk rock, right?

But then it's like, Talking Hedge 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. It'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.

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. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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 it 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 in... 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. Right. Now play the opening to underneath the bunker, track six.

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 do you say? Gypsy. Gypsy, yeah. That just came to mind because I was listening to that Aldi meal earlier.

Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. So, yeah, they're all over the place on this. But what's funny about that is that those are the two songs. Nope, not thinking back. I was about to go. I was about to have a theory.

I thought those were the two tracks that were left off. They were left off. They were left off. Yeah. But I believe it's not. Underneath the bunker was. Underneath the bunker was. So the two songs that, that, so the last two songs on each side were,

were not featured on the track list. 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 backup vocals,

I've always loved that. I think it adds another layer of, like Mike Mills is a great vocalist, and 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, this album is kind of a perfect example of like, they decided, you know, they had such a measurable time recording vehicles of the reconstruction that it feels like they 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 the producer, obviously, 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 our quick peek at REM's Life's Rich Pagent.

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 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 later at a later date. But, yeah, their first four albums are just

amazing. And then, you know, the next album, too. You know, it's funny. I said for some reason, I 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. It's actually, 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 up with an album. I mean, that's fucking impressive. That's, 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 Gaye was also extremely prolific in his early years. Yeah, it's just insane.

but anyway so to close out first of all let's just tee up the next the next full-length episode we're going to continue our radio head

fest with amnesiac and this is we're nearing the end I guess because we're going to end on no actually we got three we 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 R&M song, but we're going to play the Click version. Again, it came out 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 Quentin. And we'll talk to you all next time.