REMtrospective 2: Murmur
May 2nd, 2008 by Curt Holman in Listening Stack
Title: Murmur
Released on: April 11, 1983
Favorite tracks: “Pilgrimage,†“Radio Free Europe,†“Sitting Still,†“West of the Fieldsâ€
My thoughts about REM’s first full-length album Murmur, a beloved landmark album in rock music, center on this question: can you sing early REM songs in the shower?
By “early,†let’s say pre-Lifes Rich Pageant. By “shower,†I mean, as opposed to singing along to an R.E.M. recording in the car or on the iPod or whatnot. I can chime in with practically any R.E.M. song after a fashion, no matter how obscure the lyrics, but I can’t carry the early tunes on my own. What strikes me about Murmur is how it’s a great album that goes so much against the grain of conventional rock songs.
For the sake of this argument (which might be a little more abstract than the ones that will come later), I’m going to wrench Murmur out of the context of R.E.M.’s contemporaries, the influences that shaped their sound, etc. For me, the building blocks of the most accessible rock songs are simple, catchy hooks. When I think about the melodic foundations of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand†or “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction†or “Senses Working Overtime†or “I Melt With You,†I can scarcely imagine NOT singing along with them.
The aptly titled Murmur not only has indistinct lyrics, but it seems practically bereft of conventional hooks. It’s hard to imagine the band expecting that tracks from Murmur would be likely contenders for Casey Kasem’s Top 40 countdown 25 years ago: “And coming in at number 31, R.E.M. finds out that it’s so much more attractive inside the Moral Kiosk!†But Murmur’s songs still have a great beat, and you can dance to (most of) them.
“Radio Free Europe,†the album’s first track and R.E.M.’s first single (before Chronic Town) is kind of a perfect indie/college radio single: the “Calling out (in transit)†part of the chorus really IS like a beacon or clarion call to like-minded listeners, a way of asking “Is there anybody out there who thinks this is cool, too?†I’m also struck by the way the echo effects on “Radio Free Europe,†“Pilgrimage,†“West of the Fields†and others embellish their Chronic Town sound: the sound seems to reverberate even further, as if it’s traveled an even further distance. I imagine the band discovering the echo options for the first time in the studio, and a light shining down from on high.
And it doesn’t matter that you can’t understand the words. Apart from “Wasting time, sitting still†and the part that I think goes “I can hear you / Can you hear me?†I have no idea what “Sitting Still†says. But I still find it an uplifting piece of music. (I thought about finding the lyrics – or, presumably, somebody’s best guess about the lyrics – on line before writing this, but it seemed like cheating: peaking ahead to the answers at the back of the book. Maybe later).
Trying to figure out “Catapult†from casually listening, the words that jump out at me are the “We were little boys, we were little girls,†part at the beginning, and the way the chorus repeats “Did we miss anything?†then repeats “Catapult! Cat-a-pult!†My deduction: when the band members were kids, they had a catapult and shot at stuff. Did they miss anything? (This is why I don’t consider lyric interpretation my strongest suit.)
Still, it’s like there’s something about those atypical melodic structures, that signature, jangling guitar sound and those snippets of half-understood words that takes a short-cut around the usual way I listen to rock songs (speaking for myself). Murmur songs like “Talk About the Passion,†“Shaking Through†and “We Walk†perfect the laid-back R.E.M. sound that “Gardening at Night†anticipated. Listening to “Pilgrimage†in particular is itself a kind of religious experience, like getting someone’s blessing. It’s like Murmur has a high “signal-to-noise†ratio, but the warm, reassuring, life-affirming message of the music comes in loud and clear.
Early listening conditions: I have no memory of Murmur’s release — it’s one that I caught up with later.
I primarily listened to Murmur on the car-cassette I copied from my LP. Because the songs are listed in a random order on the back of the original LP, however, I didn’t know which was “Side A†and which was “Side B,†and my best guess was wrong. So to me, “Catapult†is Murmur’s first song, and “Perfect Circle†the last one. And to me, that really works. “Catapult†is a great example of R.E.M.’s mellow exuberance, while “Perfect Circle†makes a soft send-off and fade-out. “West of the Fields†strikes me as a spookier, less reassuring ending by comparison.
I have more to say about the first song/”kick-off” position of tracks on REM albums a little later.
Speaking of misunderstood lyrics, in college we had a discussion as to whether, in “Sitting Still,†the words were, “We will gather, throw a fit†or “We will gather, throw up beer.†The funny thing is, first time it comes up in the song, it sounds like the former, but last time sounds more like “beer†than “fit.â€
For Chronic Town, click here.
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