'Chorus And The Ring'

Probably my favourite song from 2001's Reveal, an album largely dominated by electronic music, Chorus And The Ring gives old fans a little of what they've been waiting for since Automatic For The People. But only a little.

I'm pleased with how this cover has turned out. Hopefully all the details are in there, the flutes (if indeed they are flutes), the organs, the throbbing distorted noise which I can only assume is a crazily distorted bass guitar! I like the fact there is vey little percussion in this song, which enabled me to give it a more human, less rigid, feel. I was able to fit the percussion around the guitars rather than the other way round.

'Try Not To Breathe'

In my opinion, I believe this to be the best song that R.E.M. have written in their career. If 1992's Automatic For The People was their creative peak then Try Not To Breathe is a creative peak within a creative peak. There's an effortless charm about this song. These days the band would have to work hard and long to create a piece of music only 80% as memorable as this.

Try Not To Breathe is a chorus of organs weaving their way through the song guided by a lively bass line and accompanied by a rhythmic acoustic guitar played with some passion by Peter Buck. Musically it's quite complex, which probably explains why they never recreated this live except for on the Monster tour where it was played a few times as a rock song with electric guitars and none of the finer details of the album recording.

I'm aware I've stole the intro from the album version and looped it all the way through! But the rest is my own work. If a cover of a song like Second Guessing might fall together relatively quickly then this is the exact opposite. As a guitarist it took great determination to cover this one because the guitar alone just doesn't do the job, it's the organs and the bass that drive the song.

'Camera'

I don't really have much to say about this one except that I'm really proud of the wind chimes in the third verse! Camera is a tender moment on an otherwise energetic album but it's not one of my all time favourites.

I'm going to go off on a complete tangent now and talk about the idea that "less is more" which is something I'm slowly realising as I listen harder to songs in preparation for covering them. If I have spent a long long time getting an organ melody right or there's a guitar part I feel I can play particularly well there's a tendency to want to show off and boost the volume of these parts. But I'm discovering this isn't necessary. Keeping these musical achievements low in the mix adds to the longevity of the song and prevents aural "overcrowding" whereby all instruments are competing to be heard leading to a tiring listening experience. In this recording, for example, I was really pleased that I'd gone to great lengths to get my hands on some wind chimes and there was the temptation to "pollute" the third verse with them. I practiced self restraint and kept them really quiet and I think the song is all the better for it.

'Welcome To The Occupation'

One of my favourite R.E.M. songs and the only jangly folk song on Document. It also features one of my favourite dual Stipe vocals of all time.

I read somewhere that there is no acoustic guitar in this song, despite it sounding like there is. Apparently, it just features some very complex percussion work from Bill Berry that gives the impression of light strumming. So, not having the percussion skills, or the eyebrows, of Bill Berry I have included an acoustic guitar but removed all but the highest of frequencies to give it the percussion effect, or not, as the case may be!

As a cover, though I'm pleased with this, it's not one of my favourites. It's just too instrumentally sparse to do anything with. I'm working on Chorus And The Ring at the moment and because there's so much going on in that song it sounds really good when I started adding all the elements, but Welcome To The Occupation is quite the opposite. I have a friend who will be working on vocals for these songs next year and I think this will then go from being one of my least favourite to one of my favourites!