Wolves, Lower

Wolves, Lower was my favourite R.E.M. song for many years. When I first heard it, on Dead Letter Office, it affected me so much because I felt like, subconsciously, I'd heard this before somewhere, which can't have been possible being that I was only two years old when this song was released on the Chronic Town EP.

In my opinion, it is an amazing song considering it was written so early in the band's career. If Peter Buck's claims that he only knew three chords when the band first formed in Spring 1980 then it's a near miracle that 18 months later he was playing a guitar riff as complex as this. But it's the speed that the guitar riff is played at which is most astounding for a so-called "novice guitarist", plus...... there is an even faster demo of this song circulating amongst bootleggers, appropriately titled Wolves, Lower (Fast Version). I don't mind admitting that I didn't play this in one take, it took several attempts to get the bridge 4 note riff sounding only half decent.

I'm also aware there are some overdubs during the middle 8 and verse 3 missing from this cover that I didn't even attempt to re-create! There are rumours of Michael Stipe recording with a trash can over his head - I guess this is the stuff of legends that only producer Mitch Easter and Stipe himself would hold the key to...

All Things Considered

In case you're wondering, All Things Considered is the name assigned, by my fellow R.E.M. friend (and vocalist for this project) Rob Muhlbock, to an unknown R.E.M. original they played live once on June 25th 1982 at The I And I Club in Athens, Georgia. 

When he introduced it to me I had never heard it before or even heard of it. Though, in my opinion, I hadn't been missing much! It's a strange little song with an almost ska feel to it and completely unlike any other R.E.M. song at the time. He had to twist my arm to cover it and my first attempt to cover it I quickly discarded as being shit and would be reduced to being an "outtake" but, about a year later with some spare time on my hands, I gave it another go and I'm more pleased with it now.

With a song like this, where's there's no definitive version and the sound quality of the only recording of it is so poor, there's always an element of creativity involved, such as the decision to have the middle 8 also open the song.

Writing credits for this song...

Berry / Buck / Mills / Stipe / Butler / Muhlbock ;)

The Ascent Of Man

My decision to cover The Ascent Of Man was purely as a result of my love of the way the song was performed live in 2005 on the R.E.M. Live CD/DVD. I've always considered the song one of the best of a bad bunch from Around The Sun but when I heard the guitar on the live version I had visions of how this could have been so much better. The excellent guitar part is very much downplayed on the album version in favour of electronic instruments. The album version also starts to sound tediously slow when you've listened to the live version a couple of times. But the live version isn't perfect, it's marred by seemingly out of tune piano parts that aren't even necessary.

So my aim was to take the best assets from both versions and create a version of the song that exceeds both. Obviously I'm limited by my recording equipment and musical instruments but I'd like to think if this was worked up to recording studio standards then it would be a much better representation of what is, essentially, not a bad song at all.

Harborcoat

Harborcoat was another song that wasn't on my original list of songs to cover but, as the ideas for songs to cover dried up and my infatuation with Peter Buck's use of the Rickenbacker 360 blossomed, it became an obvious choice.

For me Harborcoat is an excellent showcase for what each member of the band brings to the music. Aside from Peter Buck's complex guitar picking we have another beautifully lively bass part from Mike Mills, as independent from Peter's guitar as his vocal melody is to Stipe's lead vocal. Then there are Bill Berry's drums which power their way through the song with intricate changes to the hi hat during the verse which further adds personality to the song.

It's not a bold rock classic like Summer Of 69 but a delicate little art-rock song from a quietly confident young band full of tiny musical details that add to its character, like the way Mike drops one of the bass notes an octave in the chorus during one of its repetitions, and the organised chaos of the middle 8 with some random harmonica from Stipe and some chaotic string scratching from Peter while all the time held together by Bill and Mike's steady rhythm section.

Catapult

A man in a guitar shop, who repaired my bass guitar once, asked me how I manage to play it without crippling my fingers. This was after I'd heard him muttering to his colleagues how he can't believe how shit these cheap bass guitars are and how poorly they are made. Lucky I didn't go in his shop the day after recording Catapult with blisters on my fingers. Yes, it's safe to say I have the strongest left hand in the UK and not for the derogatory reasons my friends would have you believe.

It was never my intention early on to tackle Catapult because, at the time, I had no bass guitar and was pessimistic about my ability to master some of the string-bending, intricate guitar parts. But alas, I got myself a cheap bass guitar and managed to approximate the guitar parts quite closely. Consequently it's now one of my top 10 favourites of all my cover songs. It's often the case that the after-thoughts actually become favourites.

The only variation from the Murmur original was in that I started the song in a similar way to how they performed it live at the time i.e. the drums don't kick in until after one bar of the bass riff, which I think is a nice touch.

Feeling Gravitys Pull

The danger with taking on a song with such an individual guitar sound as Feeling Gravitys Pull was that I could fall flat on my face right from the opening chords of the song. But I think I did OK for a non-Rickenbacker owner. 

I also had to get my head round harmonics on guitar - I've been playing guitar for 15 years and never really understood what harmonics were and how to play them, but it was important that I get it right for this song because they're such an important part of the main guitar riff. I'm never going to get them sounding as menacing as on the original but I think I'm at least half way there.

The original ending had the strings doing what they do on Fables Of The Reconstruction but, after four and a half minutes of crunchy-sounding electric guitar, the synthesised strings that come with Garageband sounded a bit weedy in comparison! So I opted to play the melody on electric guitar which I think works surprisingly well and is now one of my favourite parts of the song.

Eleventh Untitled Song

I won't lie, my reasons for covering this song were basically me thinking 1) What would be the quickest, easiest song to quickly knock out? 2) Having just sampled the drum intro to Exhuming McCarthy, what other R.E.M. songs are there where I can grab the drums from the album version during a drum solo? There aren't many solo drum parts in the R.E.M. discography and I have no desire whatsover to tackle How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us so Eleventh Untitled Song seemed the obvious choice!

I'm aware this is a tedious listen but I have high hopes for it once the vocals are added :)

King Of Birds

It was actually March Song from the Lifes Rich Pageant re-issue that was my inspiration to cover King Of Birds. Although it's a rough, somewhat tedious, early version of the song, hearing it like this inspired me to feature these raw elements more prominently in my cover. The "marching band" style drums are much more dominant in my cover than they are in the R.E.M. original.

But I knew something was missing and I knew what it was - the dulcimer. But not owning a dulcimer I had to decide whether to imitate this part on acoustic guitar or leave it out completely. I went with the former and I'm semi-pleased with the results. The opening to the song is so much powerful when it follows the dulcimer part than when it just starts with the big drums.

It was also a conscious attempt to tackle something different, I've done a lot of jangly early 1980s songs recently to the point where they almost become quite easy, so I wanted to challenge myself with this one.