Fables of the Reconstruction – R.E.M. (1985)
Four artists in my 80s list also showed up on my 90s list — Lucinda Williams, Lyle Lovett, U2 and R.E.M.
R.E.M. is the only one to place in the top five of both lists. It’s easy to forget, given their long slow fade, how dominant this band was for a very long time.
I don’t mean dominant in the commercial sense, though they certainly had their share of billboard success. I mean dominant emotionally. On album after album, R.E.M. tapped into something powerful and passionate. There’s a reason I, like many people, chose R.E.M. as the soundtrack of my adolescence and early adulthood.
Fables of the Reconstruction remains my favorite R.E.M. album despite the volumes of great work they put out later. For me, this is the quintessential R.E.M. sound — jangly guitars and mumbled vocals, understated production that hinted at the Athens bar band they were not too many years earlier.
They would grow more popular, more ambitious and more sonically adventurous. But they never sounded better.
Look at my hands
They’ve found some surplus cheaper hands
Rubbing palms and pick and choose,
who will they choose? Here is the news.
Look at that building, look at this man
Halloed and whitewashed
Gone to find a cheaper hand
He’ll offer a pound, offer a pound.
Green grow the rushes go
Green grow the rushes go
Green grow the rushes go
The compass points the workers home
Pay for your freedom, find another gate
Guilt by associate, the rushes wilted a long time ago
Guilty as you go
Stay off that highway, word is it’s not so safe
The grasses that hide the greenback
The amber waves of gain again
The amber waves of gain
Green grow the rushes go
Green grow the rushes go
Green grow the rushes go
The compass points the workers home
Meet Me In Montauk 
And you chose to feature one of my very favorite songs on one of my very favorite albums… what a nice way to begin a Wednesday morning.
I agree with all you’ve said today – this is the quintessential R.E.M. album and the soundtrack to my college years, if not my youth 🙂
I just love it.
(meanwhile, I just caught the last 30 seconds or so of the video…. what’s up with that?!)
While I still rank Automatic for the People as my favorite REM album, this is absolutely a great one as well.
By the way, the amount of disdain I have for Morrisey’s voice is inversely proportional to the love I have for Stipe’s voice. He is among a handful of artists I could listen to singing the phone book and find it compelling (others include Sting, Peter Gabriel, Natalie Merchant).