Night Swim

I was quite surprised when I first learnt this was an outtake from Out Of Time as it sounds like something they might have done in the mid 1980s. I guess they rejected it for Out Of Time the same way they rejected Title for Green – that it sounded too much like themselves and therefore not fitting with the new direction they wanted to go in.

Night Swim is certainly nothing special, a minor-key, mid-tempo song, probably the type of song Peter Buck could write in his sleep. I guess Stipe wasn’t inspired by the music presented to him because, at the start of the second verse, he mutters something and doesn’t sing the rest of the song.

But I wouldn’t have covered it if I didn’t at least like it in some way. It’s a pleasant enough backing track with some nice R.E.M-esque chord changes and I like the way the middle 8 gathers momentum and urgency before calming down for the final verse. Vocally, I actually love the melody Stipe came up with for the verse even if the chorus is a bit of a non-starter.