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R.E.M.'s second IRS-years compilation, And I Feel Fine, was released this week. I already had most of the stuff on the bonus disc, but a lot of it is buried on tapes that are still sitting in my closet somewhere. One gem that I re-discovered is the live version of "Life and How to Live It" that's on disc 2. Michael prefaces the song with a story about a guy who has divided his house into two halves. He lives on one side until he gets bored with it, and then goes to the other half with new clothes, furniture, and everything else. When he dies they find boxes and boxes of unread, unsold books that he'd written in the back of his closet. The book was called Life and How to Live It. I've never discovered whether this is a true story, a Southern fable, or just some made-up inspiration for the song. I had this same recording on my very first R.E.M. "rarities" compilation tape that I made in high school. I probably got most of the stuff from WSYC's end-of-semester All-Star Weekend when each DJ would play two hours of whatever band they wanted. Listening to this again reminded me of my years in high school and into the beginning of college where I would search out and buy anything remotely related to R.E.M. - Hindu Love Gods, Indigo Girls, LOTS of live tape trading, and eventually downloading RealAudio files. Early on in college I think I was able to claim that I owned everything (live stuff excluded) that R.E.M. had ever put to tape and released. As an 18-year-old, pre-Napster, I thought this was a pretty big deal.
After that initial rush of R.E.M. overload, I discovered new bands (many through R.E.M. interviews) and didn't listen to it as much any more, although I still know all of the records back-to-front and they're still some of my favorites. Over the past couple of years, though, the band has started to play some of their great early songs again. Some of them, like "Pilgrimage," I'm rediscovering as old favorites, and others I knew but had never really loved the first time around. The best example of this is definintely "Life and How to Live It." The album version of this only carries about 10% of the punch that the live version does, and it's become one of my very favorite early R.E.M. songs. It was the highlight of the show when I saw them at the Tweeter Center in 2003.
Incedentally, it was at this show that I first (briefly) met my fiancee. She doesn't remember me there, but that's just as well because her memories would probably just be of me blabbering on and on about what an incredible show this was and can't you believe that they played songs from Fables and Reckoning and so on.
FYI, even if you buy And I Feel Fine (and you should), hold on to your copy of Eponymous because I believe it's still the only place you can hear "Romance" on CD. Not that it's a great song, but, you know, I wouldn't want you to let a completist like me down.
Jerad posted this in Albums | Comments (0)
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