Mandolin Strum

This is actually one of my favourite unreleased instrumentals in that it is just so R.E.M! It must be something about the chord changes, the tempo or the use of mandolin and organ combined. 
I suppose the band considered it to be too R.E.M. and discarded it as they moved forward towards Automatic For The People. Or maybe Stipe just had trouble finding a vocal melody for it.
Instrumentally it’s all about the mandolin and acoustic guitar. There is no percussion, very limited use of bass guitar. I believe there are two mandolins playing in the verse although I just play the one part, plus I wanted to keep the verse shorter and the second mandolin was just an attempt at adding variation to the verse.
It took me quite some time to figure out the mandolin part to this song, it’s on par with Losing My Religion in terms of complexity and actually shares the first two notes with that song. The verse is basically just a riff around the A minor chord.

I think it’s become a bit of a stigma that R.E.M. write sad songs consisting of minor-chord changes. I think I recall Peter Buck saying the same thing at some point. On that basis this song has to be the pinacle of that observation as it’s full of them!