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!