Star Me Kitten

Star Me Kitten is one of those great little forgotten R.E.M. songs that sounds nothing like anything else they've done. It features Stipe in, what I describe as, his "quiet menace" mode. It's a pre album track, a respite before the high-energy political rant of Ignoreland.

It was, and still is, my intention to reproduce the 10CC-I'm Not In Love-style voice effect for this song. I tried it with my voice and got the desired effect except that my self-loathing kicked in and I'd much rather leave it to my friend Rob who I know will sound a lot better. But to explain the process – I had to sing "aaah" in every note (and it's sharp/flat equivalent) and then load each recording on to the keys of a software instrument so I could effectively play back my voice like an instrument. I believe this is the effect Mike Mills used on the album version. You can see him working on this in the Rough Cut documentary shortly before they perform the song in soundcheck.

I didn't feel like there was a lot to do in my cover, which is a reason I've been reluctant to cover the song. In other words, to reproduce it note for note is no great feat of musicianship. But what it lacks in instrumentation it makes up for in mood and a lot of this I achieved by using a lot of reverb and light tremolo.