Shaking Through
Murmur | 1983
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This feels like I was dealt a hat trick of REM vocal challenges. First the harmony challenge of near wild heaven. Then the solo Stipe crooning challenge of “I’ll take the Rain”. Now the standout vocal preformance from their debut. The last chorus during the modulation to E is where Stipe’s vocal first anoounces itself as a force.

Its been good to learn how my voice comes across. Mising myself is a completely different experince than mixing someone else. It’s that phenomenon where you have a wildly different idea of your voice from hearing it comong from within your own head. I have to be careful during mixing not to steer into or away from that tone too much.

Almost Mad Bredified

This is the first REM song I almost got my band Mad Bread to cover. I’ve already spent some time with the lyrics and chords while learning it for the band. We never got to this one, but I we did start on “Frequency”, so I’ll take the wins where I can.

What I didn’t do was learn the guitar part. I found a blog by the guitarist from “Dead Letter Officers”. I always start these songs by looking up and comparing chords around the internet. Its great to have so many resources with the internet, you just have to sort through a lot of cruft. Its rare that one source will have a completey correcrt chord chart or tab. But I get a but from eveery source I find and theen use my ears to figure out what to use.

That’s part of the reason why I’m not posting the chords, tabs or sheet music. It’s out there if you want it for any of these songs.

Lyricosity

Yeah, these Murmur songs are cryptic. I think of this one as the best example of that “vague conversation overheard at a party” quality I associate with REM. This one makes me feel like someone just told me a secret. There’s something difficult we’re both going through in sympathetic ways.

This song makes me feel good when I hear it.