I would say that most of REM's songs are a mystery as to what the lyrics mean. All the way back to "Life's Rich Pageant", the songs are more word pictures than they are statements or stories. Kind of like Talking Heads songs are the same way.

What is 'Orange Crush'?

"Swan, swan hummingbird swan, hurrah - we are all free now. What noisy cats are we."

The breakup of this band is disappointing as one of their recent releases captures the raw energy of their earliest album.

I bought "Life's Rich Pageant" back in 1987 or so, mostly because I thought the artwork was intriguing - in a time where artwork leaned toward the angular and robotic, LRP was kind of 'punk' in a way with cut-up photographs, finger painting, etc. on the cover.

I hated it for several years - I would try to like it, but never 'got' it.

Then perhaps 15 years ago, I gave it a spin and something about it got under my skin in a good way. Some of the chord progressions are just akimbo of expected, and loud in a 'turn up the Fender Blackface' loud, not crank up the wall-o-marshalls loud. That's the loud I like.

Saw them live about 7 years ago and they were fun to watch.

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