A song of wide-eyed wonder, political conscience and some inherent sadness. Great for pale, literate teens, looking to construct themselves as I was at the time. This is probably where my journeywith R.E.M. really began. Late 1983 and Kid Jensen playing this on his Radio 1 evening show and asking John Peel whether he was playing them. Peel was non-committal. He never took to them. I did though. Bought Murmur soon afterwards.
The Byrds influence on the band, which was brought up a lot in their early days, probably came largely from this song. It was built on a signacture riff and general ambience, (a taste for the quieter things in life, a search for beauty), that could easily have been them. Peter Buck was always slightly defensive about this, saying there was much more of an influence from Soft Boys on his playing.
I always found this slightly disingenuous. The Soft Boys sound was completely saturated in The Byrds. Still, it was certainly an update. But it drew on the Sixties, and something that had largely been denied in Punk and Post Punk. This was an act of recovery, and for me discovery.
No comments:
Post a Comment