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.