REM was the perfect mix of New Wave/Punk and Southern music that I was looking for in 1984. Sometimes you’re just waiting to hear a sound, and it appears. That was my experience in 1984. Lyrically, I was always impressed their ability to include the local/regional flavors, sites, and sounds without the tendency toward maudlin, sentimental, and sometimes cliche in country music.
What’s more the ambiguity (sometimes incomprehensible) had a kind of sense to it. Little America is definitely about touring, but there is a deeper commentary about American life. They are singing about the future and a past that was fading. Who will tend the farm museums and dust today’s belongings? The insight might come from rapid and constant traveling, but it is about a world losing its meaning. There is always this gothic southern tinge in their early stuff too.
REM was the perfect mix of New Wave/Punk and Southern music that I was looking for in 1984. Sometimes you’re just waiting to hear a sound, and it appears. That was my experience in 1984. Lyrically, I was always impressed their ability to include the local/regional flavors, sites, and sounds without the tendency toward maudlin, sentimental, and sometimes cliche in country music.
What’s more the ambiguity (sometimes incomprehensible) had a kind of sense to it. Little America is definitely about touring, but there is a deeper commentary about American life. They are singing about the future and a past that was fading. Who will tend the farm museums and dust today’s belongings? The insight might come from rapid and constant traveling, but it is about a world losing its meaning. There is always this gothic southern tinge in their early stuff too.