REMtrospective, 5: Lifes Rich Pageant
May 22nd, 2008 by Curt Holman in Listening Stack
Title: Lifes Rich Pageant
Released on: July 28, 1986
Favorite tracks: “These Days,” “Begin the Begin,” “Swan Swan H”
“Let’s begin again,” Michael Stipe sings in “Begin the Begin,” the first song on Lifes Rich Pageant. When the members of R.E.M. start their fourth full-length album with an anthemic message to start anew, it’s almost like they’re presenting Pageant as a “do-over” album compared to Fables. Not that I think that Fables would necessitate a do-over, but if Wikipedia is to be believed, the band had ambivalent feelings about Fables and didn’t enjoy the process of recording it.
Signals aside, there’s a marked difference between the albums. In my memory, R.E.M. made a gradual, step-by-step transition from the jangly, oblique, murmury quality of its early albums to the brighter, soaring, more articulate sound that followed — and coincided with the band’s increasing commercial popularity. It was like a dance of the seven veils, with Pageant less muffled than Fables, Document more “unwrapped” than Pageant, etc.
Instead, rediscovering Pageant reveals a sharp, almost immediate transition, like day for night. If their charging rave-ups had a “train engine” sound before, they traded them for jet engines here, as attested immediately by the low rumble, like a distant sonic bomb, underneath “Begin the Begin.” The hammering drums of “These Days” and the whoops of the equally rapid “Just a Touch” almost sound like punk songs.
I’ve never read enough interviews with the group or followed their recording history closely enough to know if any particular R.E.M. member drove the refinement of their sound. Because the guitars are so immediately distinctive on their early albums, and because Michael Stipe’s vocals (and probably his song writing as well) become more comprehensible and prominent as their sound evolved, I’ve sort of imagined that Peter Buck set the tone at first, and Michael Stipe became increasingly influential as time passed. But I’ve no idea, and I don’t think R.E.M. has ever lended itself to Paul McCartney vs. John Lennon dichotomies of pop music philosophy.
No matter who was responsible, though, Pageant’s sound now strongly reminded me of 1980s bands who I never associated with REM at the time. While I’d pay all due respect to Talking Heads and Elvis Costello, I also enjoyed many groups who qualify as peppy, second-string, b-team bands that I gradually figured out were very much influenced by 1960s garage/psychedelic rock (which I’d grow to like later on): bands like the Hoodoo Gurus, the Fleshtones, Guadalcanal Diary, Oingo Boingo, the dBs, along with ones that I respected but didn’t seek out quite as much, like the Smithereens. Some of those bands have a little punk and New Wave in them, but the 1960s is probably the most influential school of rock. (Coincidentally, my Pageant tape from 1986 has the Smithereens on the flip side; “Wild Blue Yonder” by the Screaming Blue Messiahs fills out the Pageant side).
R.E.M. is, frankly, more important than any of those bands (although it’s worth pointing out that Peter Holsapple of the dBs frequently played with REM on tour), but in Pageant, I think REM is tapping the same kind of party music source that they do. I see other signs of the 1960s in Pageant.
The cover of the Clique’s “Superman” in particular harks back to 1960s-era “Sunshine Rock” a la the Mamas and the Papas. “Fall on Me” and “Cuyahoga” have strong environmental themes (“Cuyahoga” also sounds like an elegy for Native Americans – probably Iroquois?). “The Flowers of Guatamala” is obviously about flowers. Hey – these guys are flower children! They’re hippies! Maybe they were hippies all along. On “I Believe,” Michael Stipe sings “I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract.” There’s a song here called “What If We Give it Away?” It seems so obvious. Out of Time is probably even more hippie-ish. On Pageant, though, that hippie quality sounds great and kicks ass.
The non-hippie songs include “Underneath the Bunker,” which sounds like about half of a great Tom Waits song, and “Swan Swan H,” which sounds to me like a Faulknerian meditation on the long-dead Old South, as if sifting through the rubble of the Civil War.
Early listening conditions: I mentioned the tape above. I saw R.E.M. on this tour, probably at Nashville’s “Opryland.” I’m pretty sure they played “These Days” as their second song (it’s a great “second song” choice) – it’s a song that I know I saw them play numerous times, along with “Superman” and “Feeling Gravity’s Pull.”
Fun facts: Apparently the title comes from the 1964 Peter Sellers film A Shot in the Dark:
Inspector Clouseau opens car door and falls into a puddle.
Maria: “You should get out of these clothes immediately. You’ll catch your death of pneumonia, you will.”
Clouseau: “Yes, I probably will. But it’s all part of life’s rich pageant, you know.”
I remember coming across that by accident in the 1990s and doing a classic double take.
Also, that’s apparently the top of drummer Bill Berry’s face on the album cover.
Click here for Fables of the Reconstruction
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