Many Man on the Moons ago I was in a cafe in Palmerston North as a long haired student reading the magazines - one of which was Q Magazine. Inside was a rip out sleeve note which has the inside commentary on the REM album Green. It's been inside my copy of Green since then...
R.E.M. Green - The Q Sleevenote Part One
When R.E.M. reconvened after the 1987 Christmas break for the songwriting sessions for their sixth album, they immediately did the unexpected. Mike Mills, the bassist, headed straight for the accordion. Guitarist Peter Buck and drummer Billy Berry squabbled over mandolins. The amps were ignored. Buck's Rickenbacker gathered dust to one side.
R.E.M.'s increasing infatuation with acoustic instruments was to have a crucial effect on the album. They even discussed making it totally acoustic., a reaction to '87's comparatively high-octane Document L.P. Micheal Stipe's lyrics had veered on Document from the acerbically political (Disturbances at the Heron House) to the subliminally nasty (The One I Love) to the downright seething (Exhuming McCarthy), all the while boosting R.E.M.'s metamorphosis from a band that mumbled into a band that cared. As America entered it's election year, Stipe in particular was pushing for an album that reflected hope rather than cynicism.
During the vacation R.E.M. had signed a million dollar deal with Warner Bros. This tended to crop up in early interviews now, Buck inevitably smirking that they had needed "a truck" to carry home their gargantuan advance. Stipe - despite telling friends he'd signed to Warners "because of Bugs Bunny" - was plotting his own, somehow more intellectual riposte. Soon into the recording sessions he informed the others that the title of the album would be the triparte pun Green: environmentally friendly; pertaining to the filthy dollar; naive or innocent. All at once, simultaneously.
R.E.M. entered Memphis' Ardent Studios in May '88 with only a few songs worked out, the first time they had gone in to make an album with less than 20 ready.
"We booked 11 weeks," recalls co-producer, Scott Litt, "which is an incredibly long time. They were very aware of the importance of the album, its being the first one for Warners and everything. They particularly wanted to get away from songs like The One I Love - that really kind of really direct, in your face guitar-bass-drums approach. I guess Stand which we knew right away would be a single, was the only song we approached like that. Otherwise they were happy to take the time to experiment."
Somewhere along the line, the original acoustic-only idea fell by the way side. You Are the Everything had made it through the songwriting slalom, as had a prototype of Hairshirt, which existed only as a favourite chord change of Peter Buck's played on a mandolin. Orange Crush and Pop Song '89 had been debuted on the Work Tour (The latter in notably more sinister form), as had a song called Title, which was demo'd but eventually omitted from the finished album.
Continue through to Part Two of R.E.M. Green - The Q Sleevenote
Part 3 of the Green Album discussion can be found here
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