Let's play do-you-remember...
I'm up at work late tonight and I'm immensely enjoying playing all of R.E.M.'s old "Out of Time" album on iTunes. All these great songs: Texarkana (alt.countryesque ahead of its time), Belong (why do i love this song, so? was it the video? perhaps. plus one of my favorite ultrasimple basslines), Endgame (great major second chord change on the bridge / and french horn on verse two), Me in Honey (with B-52 harmony vocals), Half a World Away, Losing my Religion (I learned the mandolin part on that tune years ago, and still plink it in my head upon listening). The only song I don't care for is "Radio Song" (Shiny Happy People in guarded moderation -- like once every year -- is even fine).
This CD mainly reminds me of a college summer spent as a camp counselor teaching rappelling to scrawny seven year olds. Listening at night on a boom box in my non-air-conditioned cabin, sweaty legs and arms sticking to a cheap nylon sleeping bag. Who would have known (at least for sure) that my girlfriend working a few cabins over would become my wife of twelve years?
I'm happy to be 37. if for no other reason than my generation gets to be the one to have embraced R.E.M., U2, and quite a few other noteworthy bands that grew up in the 80s.
sorry I've been one poor correspondent.
From one 37 year old to another, I really like that REM album (Heh, I said album) too. It's the only REM disc (compact, not vinvl) I own.
Posted by: salguod | Wednesday, June 22, 2005 at 10:26 PM
The summer I was a camp counselor: Purple Rain, some Duran Duran (maybe hungry like the wolf?).
I also heard my first REM and Violent Femmes songs, via a mix tape made for me by one of the security guards there. (For whom I fell, hard, about the same time that he decided that his gayness was not just a phase.)
It's a really good tape, though.
Posted by: betsy | Thursday, June 23, 2005 at 11:51 AM
Dig. I think REM still holds up. "What's the Frequency Kenneth" stops me in my tracks every time I hear it.
Do they have ties to San Antonio? When I spent the summer there, I had a couple people mention that a certain highway overpass/underpass was where they filmed a music video ... "Everybody Hurts"?
Posted by: Danny | Friday, June 24, 2005 at 09:09 AM
yup. i think the only connection is that they filmed "Everybody hurts" video here, as the IH-10 - to - IH-35 overpass was being rebuilt in the (when was it? early 90s?) last decade or so. The film director either needed to completely shot down a major highway or find a city constructing one, and I guess they scouted the top ten cities in the U.S. or maybe we were cheap, or whatever. I think they casted local/regional talent for the 'drivers' as well. I like that video.
I saw them live in Austin [Monster tour with Natalie Merchant opening IIRC] , but I bet they've made it to SA before as well, just not sure when.
go spurs.
Posted by: paul soupiset | Friday, June 24, 2005 at 09:16 AM
i love running into you every few years...your blog came up in a google search i was doing to describe the Pokot people group in Kenya/Uganda to my son Cole...i got diverted and have been reading lots to catch up with your life...this was posted on my birthday two years ago and rang quite true with me...i still like this album quite a bit...but i still love reckoning...
hope all is well...do you see these comments as they come in? i'm not ever "on" blogs, so i'm not sure how they work...not too cool for an emergent worship leader type of guy, eh?...
songs from jacob's well vol. I out next year...yippee...that's been what i've been up to the past 4 months...
Posted by: mike crawford | Tuesday, December 04, 2007 at 08:20 PM