Feeling Gravity's POLL: REM's "Fables of the Reconstruction"

I haven't checked out the recent reissues with demos on the bonus discs. Are they anything more than curiosities?

demo of Hyena makes it sound like a Reckoning track; it's.. weird. also some pretty interesting other demo bits on Fables' 2nd disc. they're all on Spotify (in the UK at least).

Just learned that Stipe's first choice to produce Fables was Van Dyke Parks, and when that didn't pan out, Elliot Mazer. Either of those could have been very interesting.... (but I love Joe Boyd's production here and elsewhere nonetheless)

I spent a lot of time playing "Driver 8" on my acoustic guitar as a teenager. Pre-internet, Stipe's mumble of the "power lines" line made it impossible to transcribe. I rewound the cassette *so* many times, only found it out from a piece of sheet music several years later.

I want to vote for "Driver 8," but it's like the mid-80s suburban "Layla" -- EVERY fucking high-school-age band was playing it.

This can't possibly have been true, can it?

I loved this album when I was a teenager. I think I voted for "Feeling Gravity's Pull"?

Hyena was a Reckoning-era track. It shows up frequently on bootlegs of the era.

Yeah, there's quite a few songs from Life Rich Pageant that came from the Reckoning era and even earlier. Pageant was a bit of a backlog-clearing exercise in a way.

What If We Give It Away goes right back to the beginning of the band iirc

"Just a Touch" as well

Yeah, definitely 'Hyena', 'Just A Touch' and 'What If We Give It Away?' had been around for a few years. I think 'I Believe' was a leftover from Fables although it's possible they may have had it earlier in some form or another.

Wow, I love how sloppy and fucked-up that "Hyena" is. I mean, I love it on the record for the tightness of the riff wiring its way around the beat, but between the two versions you can really triangulate the drunk party band on the bootlegs, the hypnotic post-punk band on Chronic Town band, and the sunny propulsive rock band on Reckoning through Life's Rich Pageant. All the same dudes playing songs that really weren't that different, just a few minor adjustments. It's like the Cavern Club vs. Revolver.

one of the songs (Throw These Trolls Away) seems to have some of the I Believe lyrics in it.

After all this time, what I remember was it was a very pretty record but I had a roommate at the time who was poisoned with inexplicable hatred for R.E.M. For making a pretty record. Or something.

If I remember, Fables Of The Reconstruction was the last of the IRS-era records I heard, and I never could fathom why the band themselves were so down on it or why it was treated as if it was some kind of "crisis" album. I mean, sure, the band sound like they had a terrible time making it, but why I listen to 'Driver 8', 'Maps and Legends', 'Life and How To Live It', 'Green Grow The Rushes', it's just as good as any stuff they'd done up to then. I think the band have changed their mind about the record in recent years and I'm glad about that.

Yeah, I was disappointed to read that. It has such a strong sense of nature and geography, whereas other R.E.M. records address that stuff more directly. With this one, the sense of place is in the music.

It's got that Americana vibe, like Wichita Lineman.

Pulled out the album again on Friday to absorb to and from work. For the love of god I don't hear what you guys do: retreads, murk, bleh.

Relistening to Life and How to Live It, I'm struck by how much it sounds like Makoto Kawabata nicked the opening for Pink Lady Lemonade

Love this record. Their last really great record IMO (he writes, ducking).

And EveningStar, it is totally true that Driver 8 was covered by everyone, even by bands for whom it was their one "indie" song (also Radio Free Europe). But the Buck lick is the one song everyone with an acoustic guitar knew. (Even though Boxcar was a little cooler.)

read just about every paragraph

the sky is open armed
when the light is mine

Surprising poll results; these are some of the best songs on there:

"Maps and Legends" – 3:10 3
"Good Advices" – 3:30 2
"Old Man Kensey" – 4:08 0

look at his shoes

ew

at the end of the day
when there are no friends
when there are no lovers

what do you have to saaaaaaayyyy

Locomotive 8, Southern Crescent, hear the bells ring again

"Life and How to Live It" – 4:06 5

my actual favorite rem song

No album sounds like this album

So there's a dude named Pablo Hidalgo who is a longtime employee of Lucasfilm in their Story Group and (until recently) interacted a lot with fans on Twitter. His wife Kristen is also on there and her handle is @ManRaySky, which is awesome.

"Life and How to Live It" – 4:06 5

my actual favorite rem song

way up there for me, too

I've given this album more chances than most and it'll always be meh, but I do appreciate how the arrangements strive (and achieve) for a half-awake stumbling feel.

This may be their most criminally underrated album.

Embrace the murk, Soto!

At this point every R.E.M. gets called their most criminally underrated album.

Except in this case it's true

r.e.m. didn't put out a "meh" record until reveal

I feel like Maps and Legends should be higher than Green Grow the Rushes.

For me it probably would be Driver / Maps / Can't Get.

It is a pretty good record

I usually skip "Maps and Legends", too much of a drone. It's the song where I understand why someone wouldn't like this album, or even this band.

But those last three songs, or even the last four: building up to a final relief. maybe today I would rate "Auctioneer" the highest. they're songs of a band exhausted by the road that already an album earlier was at best viewed ambiguously ("another Greenville, another Magic Mart"). but rather than write about I dunno, Bob Segar style, they characteristically code their images. But they build and build, from frenzy to anxiety to a final passing.

counterpoint: not a drone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-2QlXO1SYY

And then there's "Life And How To Live It," maybe the last of their great skittery jittery rockers where it feels like the wheels are going to come off at any moment - the descendent of Chronic Town and "9-9." After this record they still did plenty of great rock tunes but they were more locked down somehow - don't quite know how to articulate this but there's a nervous energy that gradually gets concentrated into something more focused, not necessarily better or worse but different.

― Doctor Casino, Monday, October 27, 2008 11:23 PM (eleven years ago)

OTM on "Life and How to Live It". When Bill "Blue"Berry plays that disco-esque beat at such frenetic tempo (a la "Hyena", "Harborcoat", et al) it feels like a dangerously-fast downhill ride on an unfamiliar road. I also love the backup vox in the chorus, and those walk-up bass notes that precede it. "my CARPENTERS OUT AND RUNNING ABOUT!!!!..."

What's the deal with the liner notes and its listing of trakcs that aren't actually on the album ("When We Were Young")? Or did I hallucinate that like a "Wendell Gee" fever dream?