Tag Archives: Fables of the Reconstruction

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Song of the Day #1,179: ‘Feeling Gravity’s Pull’ – R.E.M.

I was out of town when R.E.M. announced their break-up, so the news didn’t reach me right away. I saw a couple of Facebook friends post R.E.M. songs without any context and thought it an odd coincidence, but I didn’t assume it was pegged to news about the band.

A day later I read a short story about the announcement in USA Today, a rare case (these days) of learning about something for the first time in a newspaper.

My response was not sadness, but a mixture of relief and nostalgia. I imagine most long-term R.E.M. fans had a similar reaction.

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Song of the Day #676: ‘Driver 8’ – R.E.M.

I generally have two important entry points to the music of my favorite bands… the album that first introduced me to them, and the album that I bought upon release and discovered along with all the other fans.

Sometimes that’s the same album. In R.E.M.’s case, those albums came a few years apart. My first introduction to the band was 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction, which I probably heard for the first time in late ’87 or early ’88.

As is often the case, this entry point album remains my favorite to this day. That spark of first love certainly counts for a lot.

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Song of the Day #573: ‘Can’t Get There From Here’ – R.E.M.

One of the unintended consequences of my theme weeks is that I’m quick to rule out artists I’ve already covered when pulling songs for the non-theme weeks. So a band like R.E.M., which I covered in a theme week over a year ago, hasn’t been featured on the blog since. And that just ain’t right.

So I’m going to make an effort to revisit some of my favorite bands a song at a time in the non-theme weeks from now on. I’ve now covered enough ground that repetition of artists is unavoidable. And I can think of few better bands than R.E.M. to revisit song-by-song. They have so damn many good ones.

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Song of the Day #201: ‘Maps and Legends’ – R.E.M.

fables‘Maps and Legends’ is the first R.E.M. song that I remember experiencing. The year was 1988 and I was a sophomore in high school. My sister had discovered R.E.M. in college, I guess, and was obsessed with the song ‘Green Grow the Rushes’ on their third album, Fables of the Reconstruction. She has always been one to focus in on a single song and play the hell out of it (currently, it’s Vampire Weekend’s ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa‘), a trait my daughter’s apparently inherited.

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