Who will tend the farm museums?

[underpants]

[mr_lebowski]

1. They shifted the statutes for harboring ghosts ... reddened their necks & collared their cloaks ...

The Lifes Rich Pageant album came out right when I moved off to college at a sunny beach town in CA ... and that tape was my first musical purchase as a real away-from-home 'college student'. That and the following albums Document, Green and Out of Time (and of course the 3 earlier ones such as Reckoning) provided the friggin' soundtrack to my college experience, man. Along with the cure, the replacements, inxs, u2, pavement, violent femmes, the stranglers ...

To this day I know pretty much every word to every song of IRS-era REM ... well, of course by that I mean ... I have words closely resembling Michael's mumbling ...

[underpants]

2. That was one of the things that drew me to them

I'm "lyrically deaf" and have no idea what some lyrics are. I have some hilarious examples.

R.E.M. songs were whatever you took them as at that point of listening. The same song could take you - or you could take it - wherever it wanted to. You know, ART.

Yes every new album, usually in the fall, meant a devoted listening party.

[mr_lebowski]

3. I say the one-two punch of side two of the Murmur album i.e. Catapult and Sitting Still ...

Is the most epic sustained patch of (apparently) nonsense mumbling of Mike's illustrious early career. I used to entertain my friends attempting to sing along to those two songs, purposefully making up nonsense words ...

The IRS era was f***ing magical though, man. I don't care what anyone says, that was a creative burst every bit the equal of what the Beatles did in their first 5 albums, or Creedence, or U2, or The Smiths ... over the same opening-career span. All 5 are friggin' legendary, and the Chronic Town EP/Dead Letter Office disc is also very worthy ... their outtakes and b-sides were better than 95% of other bands stuff.

[underpants]

4. White Tornado is my theme song