THURSDAY I'M IN LOVE! - R.E.M. - 'Find The River'/'Oddfellow's Local 151'

Thursday I'm in Love..a chance for me to share some of my favourite tunes.

R.E.M. - 'Find The River' (1991)

What? Two R.E.M. posts in a week? After Grumpy's Shed's guest post on Monday, I'd like to give my Boba Fett nod of appreciation, let's just hope Take That don't split up!

There's no doubt R.E.M. were one of the most influential rock bands of the last 30 years, especially between the mid 80's to the late 90's. They certainly had a say on my musical landscape when I discovered them on the 'Chart Show' with the track we all love to hate, 'Its the End the World' (I think there was a skateboard in the video which helped) up to 2008's Accelerate, where there were glimpses of their best.

I have happy memories of many of their songs and many of them are classics. 'Find the River' is not my personal favourite but it's an absolute spine tingly beautiful song of hope and despair and it reminds me of my dad and sister. My sis was 8 at the time and was a massive fan of 'Out of Time', however she was disappointed with the more sombre 'Automatic for the People', maybe it was scaring her Sylvanian Families. My dad loved it of course for that very reason and I remember 'Find the River' a personal favourite of theirs especially when they listened to it in the car on the shopping run. Ah sweet!

Good night last....did you tell Michael?

R.E.M also hold the the unwanted title of one of rocks most disappointing moments. Living in Jeddah, we used to buy bootleg tapes, quality and editing were something left to be desired and the album Document was no different. Side B ended with 'Oddfellow's Local 151', a great atmospheric tune, made better by the fact that at the end of the song the distinctive guitar intro starts up again for about 30 seconds before fading out. It was brilliant and defined that album, song, universe! I thought R.E.M. were geniuses for doing something so original!! When the CD re-issue of Document came out I was so looking forward to hearing the song in the quality it deserved. Imagine my disappointment when 'Oddfellow's Local 151' ended and that was that. No intro ending!!?? What? Surely a mistake, I remember taking the CD out wiping it and blowing on it but no! It dawned on me that I had been fooled all along, distraught doesn't even come near it. The Indonesian lad (where most of these tapes hailed from) had obviously seen that there was still some room on the end of his C60 and decided to fill it by replaying the song until the tape ended, genius! Gutted!

R.E.M. - 'Oddfellows Local 151' (1987)

See u at Wembley for the inevitable comeback tour!

Enough meandering. More of my favourite tunes....Thursday I'm in Love!