Ages Of You

Supposedly a re-write of Burning Down, Ages Of You is another early song that didn't make it on to an album. It pretty much follows the template for R.E.M. songs in the early 1980s; indecipherable lyrics, jangling guitars and a driving rhythm section reminiscent of  Radio Free Europe.

I only covered this out of a desire to work on a new R.E.M. cover and running out of obvious songs to take on. I do like the song but feel the Dead Letter Office version is mixed really badly with so much reverb on the drums that it drowns out everything else. The Murmur outtakes and demos revealed a version of the song without any reverb on the drums enabling me to hear some of the more subtle guitar work and the bass line. Also, I discovered that by turning the reverb on the guitars up really loud and layering the tracks I could get a guitar sound quite similar to the original.

(Don't Go Back To) Rockville

I've been tempted to cover this for some time but have been indecisive about how to approach it; whether to go for a reproduction of the album version or the way they play it live.

I kind of went for a compromise between the two. There was no way I was going to reproduce the piano parts from the album version because, to be honest, I just don't like the song enough to go to all that trouble. But I specifically like the tremolo-effect lead guitar parts that colour the song and give it it's country feel. So I kept these and opted for a more jangly guitar sound for the rhythm guitars.

This song is quite like no other R.E.M. song. It actually doesn't even sound like them. Having been listening to The Beatles a lot in the past few weeks I feel confident in saying that there is something very Beatle-esque about Don't Go Back To Rockville, something about the chord changes and the guitar sound.

But it's a fun song to listen to and cover, the perfect medicine for these cold, dark winter months.

Wendell Gee

My motivation for covering Wendell Gee was to actually have a go at singing it as it's a song that I can do a half-decent job of singing and it's within my vocal range. But, as is often the case, what might sound good in my head when I'm singing in the car or around the house sounds very plain when I listen back to an actual recording! So for that reason, it was a classic case of "stick to what you do best" and this idea was abandoned.

It's a bit of a no thrills backing track though I'm proud of the overall feel of the track. Sometimes when I'm recording myself playing guitar I get so uptight and I think this is reflected in the overall sound. Here, I made a conscious effort to play lazily and do it in one take and, in doing that, it has a kind of bluesy late night feel to it! 

It's based purely on the Athens demo of the song not the actual album version, hence there being no piano parts and no banjo in the middle 8 (not that I own a banjo!).

Discoverer

Without a shadow of a doubt Discoverer is the best, and most exciting, song on their final album Collapse Into Now. If the album had comprised of songs of this quality then they would have really gone out on a high. As it stands, there are only really 3 or 4 songs on the album that rank up there with their best material and the rest of the album remains a bit of a disappointment.

I'm actually really pleased with the way Discoverer turned out, it wasn't always my intention to cover it as I thought it might be too ambitious and I would fall flat on my face but I took it on through sheer admiration and love for the song and learnt the parts gradually and I'd say I'm 80% there. I'm not sure I've got the verse guitars sounding right, it almost sounds like there is some sort of keyboard sound on the album version and the guitars ring out a lot better than what I've managed.

On a side note, this is one of Stipe's final vocal masterpieces, a melody only he could come up with, one that sounds rough, unrehearsed and natural and yet somehow works. The live in studio version is also really good, Stipe clearly has a lot of energy for this song.

Find The River

I decided to cover this while I was working on Drive and started this straight after Drive was complete. Instrumentally it's fairly similar with its acoustic guitars and accordion. If one beautiful song starts Automatic For The People then another finishes it.

Find The River is an R.E.M. song quite like no other, it's incredible to think the next song in sequence that people would hear would be What's The Frequency Kenneth?

Understandably this one required a bit more work than most covers do but, like Drive, it was worth the extra effort in the end.

Drive

Drive contains some of the most graceful use of strings in their career. The song kind of soars along with an effortless beauty, the strings and accordion weaving in and around the bass and light percussion. If the opinion stands that 1992's Automatic For The People captures R.E.M. at their creative best then Drive sees the band in full "can do no wrong" flow - beautiful songs like this pouring out of them. A brave choice for opening single from the album but a fan favourite nonetheless and a song that usually finds its way into their live set.

So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)

I'm really pleased with the way this one turned out. I had always liked the way this song was played live in the early 1980s, often with the short instrumental section that precedes the 2nd and 3rd verse used to open the song, sometimes even without the guitar intro we're so used to hearing. There was something edgy about the song when it was played live, I think it was probably played a touch faster than the album version and the song seems to pick up speed when the drums kick in so, although this is primarily a replica of the album version, I have taken these aspects from the live version.

This song really is all about the rhythm section, on the album there is a faint piano throughout the song and an even fainter rhythm guitar. My aim was to make the drums and bass the focus and then just have layers and layers of really quiet guitars, to build the volume through layers rather than to just turn the volume up, plus that helped me achieve that ringing sound associated with the Rickenbacker 360.

The song has been a staple of their live set throughout their whole career, although I just can't bring myself to listen to it played live since the 1990s as they play it way too slow and it loses all of its dynamic. But it's a great song and features one of Peter Buck's most well know guitar riffs and has one of the most impressive Mike Mills bass lines in the R.E.M. canon.

Life And How To Live It

This is a song that I never intended to cover. Partly because I wasn't overly fond of it but mostly because I could never figure out how to play the riff on guitar.

But discovering the song is in open G tuning meant I was able to play the riff and have it sound pretty much exactly as it does on the record, so I decided to do the cover as it would never be a particularly complex cover to work on, it is essentially just drums, bass guitar and electric guitar, so it didn't take long to complete.

Learning the bass parts was fun because Mike Mills wrote a really lively bass line for this song which competes with Peter's guitar for attention. I don't think I've ever played notes as far up the fretboard as on this song!

As for the song, I'm still not a fan, except for the gorgeous guitar intro. The song is a bit too chaotic for me, and not in a good way. It just feels like all the individual parts are competing for attention in a race to get to the finish as soon as possible. Though the song is a live favourite for its erratic vocal performance by Stipe, it's not a song I enjoy listening to live as their efforts just come across as all noise and very little melody. But still, I'm pleased with the cover and enjoyed working on it.

Monty Got A Raw Deal

I wasn't going to cover this because I couldn't play the intro part - which I believe is played on  a bouzouki (not a mandolin like I had previously thought). It was suggested to me that I loop the part from the original recording but I wasn't going to go down that road, I've done that before for drums a few times but didn't want to start doing that for other instruments as it kind of defeats the object of a "cover".

Anyway, thanks to YouTube, I managed to find out that the bouzouki is in open G tuning for Monty Got A Raw Deal so I tuned my guitar the same way (with limited success) and found I was at least able to play the riff as it would be played by the bouzouki even if the sound was never going to be quite right.

I'm pleased with the results, I've always liked the song, it's one of the stronger "album tracks" on Automatic For The People and it's a bit of a crime that most people would never have heard the song if they hadn't bought the album.

Hairshirt

Rather than buy a mandolin (which would only probably cost £50-£60 second hand) I decided I'd take the cheaper option and tune my acoustic guitar like a mandolin (open G in this case I believe).

This discovery, combined with my recent obsession with Green prompted me to record and arrange this in one two hour session - sounds impressive but it really is quite easy as the song is basically the same riff looped four times. The bass part is the same three note pattern played all through the song.

I'm actually really pleased with the results despite the fact I know it does sound like an acoustic guitar and not a mandolin!. Plus, I'm always really fond of songs that come together really quickly rather than others where weeks of tweaking are necessary.

The One I Love

First and foremost the drums are stolen from the original backing track. I found the drum track on YouTube posted by a company who has the impressive ability to isolate particular instruments from songs without access to the mixing decks!

It was this find that inspired me to cover this song at all as I wouldn't have dared to touch such a legend of song with just my shitty electronic drums. But the problem with having Bill Berry's original drum part as a basis for my cover is that it set the bar very high in terms of all the other instrumental parts.

I also discovered a web site in which certain R.E.M. songs have been stripped of certain instruments, The One I Love had been stripped of it's lead guitar part leaving the chorus bare and revealing some subtle parts that I was able to bring in to help fill out the sound. There is actually an electric guitar part playing a more jangly version of the verse riff behind the chorus but you can't hear it in the final mix. There is also an electric guitar echoing the bass notes in the chorus giving it a 12 string sound, again this can't be heard in the final mix. It felt like I'd finally been given the recipe book and only now did I know all the ingredients to be able to piece the song back together to sound something like the original.

Only in the overall tone of the electric guitar during the chorus and the solo do I fail miserably, but I put this down to equipment issues rather than lack of trying!

Ignoreland

Ignoreland is a song from 1992's Automatic For The People, often considered one of the weaker tracks on the album and not a favourite of the bands. It was never performed live until 2008 when it secured a frequent place on their set list.

I'm never sure whether the reason the band disliked the song was because of the song itself or whether they felt self-conscious about the blatant political rant featured in the lyrics. Maybe Stipe's contribution to the song was motivated by a moment of anger or resentment in which he felt a little embarassed about in years to come, that's always been my take on the song.

It is one of those songs where you couldn't sit down and play any one of the instrumental parts and have someone recognise what song you are playing. It is what it is because of the sum of its parts.

Usually when I approach a cover I'm familiar with the music, I've been playing the song on guitar for years, but Ignoreland is a song I didn't even know the chords to. But I managed to get a rough approximation of what the guitar parts are although it's hard to know exactly because there is so much going on in this song.

I'm really pleased with the results given my knowledge limitations of the song, it may not be note perfect but I feel I've re-produced the sense of urgency that comes with the song pretty well.

Stop Time

For those of you wondering what this is - a bunch of Reveal demos recently leaked on the Internet, the majority of which are earlier, more primitive, versions of the album songs we know, but there were also some other unreleased instrumentals. Only some showed any real potential, one of which was a song called Stop Time which was a bit of an old school R.E.M. style song.

Having altered the structure of the song and added some subtle additions instrumentally I'd say this cover is 25% improvised and 75% as the original.

I spent a lot more time on this and consequently it's the most layered R.E.M. song I've ever done. Lucky I upgraded my computer RAM recently!

The Flowers Of Guatemala

This cover is based on the Athens demo that was released with the Lifes Rich Pageant re-issue. Therefore it lacks any of the over-production that the album version has and strips the song down to a more edgy R.E.M. sound. The only thing I take from the album version is the correct chord changes during the end of the guitar solo part.

I have a growing dissatisfaction with how "computer-generated" my backing tracks sound so this one was a conscious effort to combat this. To do this I've done something I never knew Garageband could do and that is to adjust the tempo throughout the song, for example, the chorus speeds up considerably and the verses, especially the last, are really slow. I've thrown some drum beats off the alignment grid slightly to try and bring in an element of human error rather than have everything aligned robotically to a set tempo. Finally I've applied a slight distortion to the snare which I've read also helps make it sound less synthesized. Obviously I'm not saying it now sounds like a professional drummer but every little helps.

As a cover this is not particularly exciting as it's a sub standard version of an instrumental R.E.M. have recently made available anyway but I decided to do it purely out of love for this version of the song.