This has been in my YouTube playlist R.E.M. Instrumentals for some time, but I don’t remember hearing a version of Mandolin Strum with sort-of vocals before.
You can clearly hear him practicing a sort-of Losing My Religion lyric.
Thanks. Not 100% sure I’ve heard this version before, though it sounds kinda familiar. It sounds great!
I love all R.E.M., but the Out of Time/Automatic era is pretty special to me. I became a fan at the age of 12, with Out of Time, hungrily devouring every TV appearance, every magazine article, every book, every b-side, and excitedly discovering the back catalogue.
I feel like they were really in the zone then. Everything hit the mark. Even the weird non-lyrical demos, like this one. An album of rejected songs from the early 90s would have been a pretty decent album!
I might be wrong, but isn’t Organ Song, the Sidewinder b-side, a mandolin-less version of this?
Nice playlist by the way! I love Winged Mammal Theme and Shine, in particular. Tried coming up with a vocal melody for Shine once. It was rubbish. I’m no Michael Stipe!
I am wrong. Organ Song was Here I Am Again, without words, wasn’t it? Also a brilliant rejected song from the early 90s. I think some of the lyrics were re-used on Fretless. Another brilliant rejected song from the early 90s!
Somewhere, in some alternate universe, there’s another fucking brilliant R.E.M. album from the early 90s.
I know the band feel a little exposed by the release of demos, and I’m not necessarily a completist, but I think hearing these little sketchbook plans deepens my respect for the craft.
that came from a bootleg of out of time demos that had been floating around the internet in various forms for 15-20 years. i think was typically called time of outtakes. a lot of it ended up on the OOT deluxe reissue, but some cool/interesting outtakes like “mandolin strum,” “here i am again,” “speed metal,” and “night swim” were sadly left off.