Friday, May. 23, 2014 | 08:44
R.E.M. Unplugged 1991 2001 The Complete Sessions
when i was in high school i rummaged through the bins at a local music store named traxx (which only survived a few more years) and found some rare, imported gems. Pet Shop Boys' 'Very Relentless' and a bootleg of the first (at that time only) R.E.M. Unplugged performance called 'Hitting The Note'. i'm sure i found other things there, but those stand out in part because i never saw them anywhere else. the former had the beginnings of the PSB follow up to 'Very' that never got finished (they put out 'Disco 2' instead; i read in an interview later that they regretted not finishing 'Relentless') and the latter included bonus live recordings like "One" with U2 at the Clinton inauguration and "Dark Globe" from Italy or somewhere.
having the Unplugged performance was exciting. i had seen it, of course, and it felt great to revisit the audio, just as i was thrilled to find the MTV Video Music Awards performance of "Everybody Hurts" on the 'Automatic Box'. the songs sounded both revised and appropriate. not better than the album versions, just different.
listening to the full performance now, decades later, i am taken back to that time. i hear the whole albums, i hear 'Hitting The Note', i hear my dreams and youth as i thought it would always be.
strangely, i also hear the songs differently. i hear the words, and not just the words, but suddenly they make sense. i think when i heard them originally they were words, part of a melody, part of a song, and the whole song had an impact on me, every part of it. i know i learned the words, and even thought about them and what they meant, but i never put them together with the singing. "Fretless" was just a song about a situation--i didn't even think about what the situation was--and now i think maybe it's an account of an actual situation stipe was in, that the man and woman referenced are people he's having relationships with, and how complicated that is. maybe it's just a metaphor explaining his bisexuality, but it's told like a real problem he had, the same way "Cuyahoga" suddenly sounds like childhood reminiscence and not just words strung together. now it all seems to make sense. i have a new, deeper conneciton to the words, and that's exciting, too.
