World Leader Pretend

In a sense this is a cover of a cover. The cover in question being the one I did in 2005 in my YouTube days!

This cover, like the 2005 one, is inspired by the way the song takes on a different slant just by being played at a slightly faster tempo live on Tourfilm. On my original cover I came up with a piano part for verses 1 and 2 which loosely follows the melody Peter Buck is playing on guitar in the live version. I liked this so much I kept it for this version. I also like how the drums kick in sooner than they do on the album version during the third verse i.e. after the piano solo part.

As a song I've never really found World Leader Pretend to be a very catchy song but nevertheless I've kind of respected it as an intelligent song and a key moment on Green, I prefer the way the song sounds live but I think Michael Stipe has always struggled with this one in a live setting because the vocal is very low, and somewhat sinister, which works great on record but it's hard for a vocal like that to project well in a large arena. Much later in R.E.M.'s touring career Stipe started toying with an alternative, higher vocal melody for this song, with limited success.

Bittersweet Me

I only really took on Bittersweet Me because I felt like New Adventures In Hi-Fi (along with Up) was one of the few albums I hadn't targeted for any of my covers, and it got me thinking about which song I would feel most confident covering.

I chose Bittersweet Me not just because I like it but because, having just finished Bang And Blame, I was able to use a lot of the same elements. It's surprising how much the two songs have in common: They both have a near identical tempo and drum part for the verse and they both share the same guitar sounds i.e. jangly during the verse, loud during the chorus. So, to sell myself short a little, it was a bit of a "save as" job!

As for the song itself, well it reminds me of turning up to school on a snowy day in 1996 only to be sent home because of the snow. Instead of going home I trudged in to town to buy the Bittersweet Me CD single and went home and listened to it and it's B-sides (I still maintain this CD release has some of the best B-sides they ever released) while watching the cars sliding around outside and getting stuck unable to get up the hill. So the song has a nice homely, wintery feel to it.

Bang And Blame

This is my third attempt at covering Bang And Blame. I don't think it's a song I would have been all that bothered about tackling if it weren't for my fondness for the version of the song they played on Saturday Night Live. This version is one of the B-sides of Tongue and also features in the Rough Cut documentary. 

Those of you who have heard this version will know that Peter Buck favours a guitar riff based around an A minor chord on the 5th/7th fret over the tremelo effect that appears on Monster. I'm not certain why he does this, maybe it's due to the technical difficulties of replicating the tremelo effect live, but the resulting sound is a gorgeous minor key riff that renders Bang And Blame almost unrecognisable for the opening few seconds. Aside from this moment of brilliance the performance is a bit sloppy with neither Peter Buck or Scott McCaughey quite knowing what to do during the verse.

My cover is basically a clone of the album version with the addition of the live guitar riff. Plus I've been getting a bit jangly and clean with my guitar sound recently so it's nice to turn the amp up and rock out a bit!