The 500 - #197 - Murmur -R.E.M.

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #197
Album Title: Murmur
Artist: R.E.M

Genre: Alt Rock, Jangle Pop
Recorded: Reflection Studios (Charlotte, North Carolina)
Released: April, 1983
My age at release: 17
How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #165, moving up 32 spots.
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Perfect Circle

In 1977, American poet Laura Gilpin published The Hocus Pocus Of The Universe, her first anthology of poetry. It earned numerous honours, including the Walt Whitman Award from the American Academy of Poets. The Chicago Review literary magazine described her work as "plain, unselfconscious and elegant with tentative endings that leave the reader feeling that there is more to be said, some conclusion to be drawn or some emotion to be underlined".

I discovered one of Gilpin's best known poems while researching information on Murmur, the 1983 debut album from American indie rock band R.E.M. The Gilpin poem that captured my attention is called The Two-Headed Calf and, as I read it over coffee in my Glasgow hotel room while on a railway tour of Scotland in August, I was overcome by the beauty, tragedy and depth contained in just a few short lines. Gilpin’s economy of language had me misty-eyed and the following elegant lines of verse stuck with me all day:

The Two-Headed Calf 

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.

                                               Laura Gilpin (1977) 

Gilpin delivers the gut punch right away. This newly born, two-headed calf will meet an undeserved and untimely end at the hands of the farmer in the morning. However, on this "perfect summer evening", "he is alive" and safe in the unconditional love of his mother as he experiences the magnificent beauty of the natural world.

This unusual creature (the odds of a cow being born with two heads – polycephaly -- is about 1 in 400 million) is a metaphor for uniqueness and difference. The reader is prompted to reconcile their acceptance of diversity in our world. The contrast presented by each verse encourages the reader to confront biases they may hold about society's adherence to homogeneity. The two-headed calf serves as a blank slate onto which one can project their own experiences and perspective.

Additionally, one can reflect on the brevity of life. The calf will only live for a single night, but will see "twice as many stars" as the others in that northern orchard field. It is difficult to read this poem without meditating on the impermanence of one’s own existence. Am I appreciating the "perfect summer evenings" or "the wind in the grass" when I am blessed with so many more nights than the calf?

A Google search reveals that many have chosen
tattoo art to celebrate this beautiful poem.

It seems that R.E.M. songwriters, Michael Stipe (vocals), Mike Mills (piano, bass), Bill Berry (drums) and Peter Buck (guitars), were also impacted by Gilpin's poem. It is referenced in the song Pilgrimage on their record Murmur, which contains lyrics about personal redemption and transformation.

R.E.M. (1983) (l-r) Buck, Stipe, Mills and Berry.

Much like Gilpin, R.E.M. made a quiet but significant impact on the world of art with the release of their first full-length record, Murmur in 1983. Formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980, the quartet took their name from the initialism of the term Rapid Eye Movement – the cycle of sleep in which dreams occur. The group quickly built a loyal following, playing local venues in the college town of Athens and released their first single, Radio Free Europe, in July, 1981.

Album cover for R.E.M. single Radio Free Europe (1981).

Radio Free Europe, which was re-recorded for the debut record, Murmur, features the kind of lyrics that became a trademark for the group. Much like the poetry of Gilpin, their words have a simplistic beauty to them, providing a canvas on which the listener can overlay their own meaning, perspective and experience. Without a doubt, that is what I love most about the band, allowing the words to wash over me. Many songs have become intricately and beautifully tied to specific moments in my life -- some glorious and others painful. I could write dozens of blogs about my connections to R.E.M. songs including Daysleeper, Night Swimming, Losing My Religion, So Central Rain, Perfect Circle, The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight, Oddfellows Local 151, Half A World Away, and Man On The Moon.

Tracklist for Murmur by R.E.M.

Despite critical acclaim (Rolling Stone Magazine proclaimed Murmur the best album of 1983) the album sold an underwhelming 200,000 copies in its first year. Even so, the band’s popularity continued to grow throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, symbolized by the vegetation depicted on the album’s jacket – in reality an invasive species of Japanese Arrowroot called Kudzu that also dominated the Georgian landscape in the early ‘80s. 

Kudzu overtaking trees in Georgia.

It so happened, I intentionally celebrated my 49th birthday on a rooftop patio in Athens by taking time out from a road trip to Florida to visit Disney World and Universal Studios with my niece and nephew (who had flown ahead). Mine was a pilgrimage to the home of R.E.M. and ‘70s new wave band, The B-52s, of which I was also a fan. Listening with my wife to tracks from both bands, we weaved our way south through the Nantahala National Forest that July afternoon. We arrived around 4 o’clock after a 14-hour overnight drive and I flopped on the Holiday Inn bed for a quick, battery recharging, nap.

A shot I took of the Athens night sky from a rooftop patio - July 11, 2014.

Darkness brought one of those perfect nights always to be remembered -- eating tacos with my wife, sipping a cold beer, marveling at the Athens skyline..."the moon rising over the city, the wind in the trees...and maybe, just maybe, twice as many stars as usual".

The 500 - #223 - War - U2

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #223
Album Title: War
Artist: U2
Genre: Post Punk, Rock
Recorded: Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin, Ireland

Released: February, 1983
My age at release: 17
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very

Is it on the 2020 list? No
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Sunday Bloody Sunday

Album cover for War, featuring Peter Rowan, the brother
of U2 singer Bono's friend Guggi.

Last week, I booked two plane tickets to England. My wife and I will arrive in Manchester and, after visiting my family, travel by train through Scotland. It will be my wife’s debut venture to her ancestral homeland, her mother being a Scot. Decades have passed since I was there, and we are looking forward to the trip with excited anticipation.

When I visited at age 12, I stayed for more than a month, touring plenty of locations throughout Britain. The adults in my world were generous with their time, energy and resources to make sure I saw the now-refurbished industrial centre of Manchester, the ancient city of York, the pastoral county of Kent, the seaside mecca of Blackpool in the northwest of England and, of course, London. The moorlands of the northern counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire offer locals and visitors alike with dramatic, ever-changing vistas as clouds billow above, casting shadows across the hills and dales below.

While visiting Manchester, I had my first encounter with "The Troubles" -- what has been described as an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland – that started in the 1960s. Tension was high in large English cities because of the unpredictable threat of guerrilla terrorism by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group that sought the end of British control over Ulster (Northern Ireland) and unification with the independent Irish Republic to the south.

My mom and I were in a department store in downtown Manchester when shoppers were ordered to evacuate the building after a telephone bomb threat. It was all new to me and I didn't understand the urgency and alarm in my mother's tone as she hurried me out to the streets. My regret was having been hauled from the record department where I had been flipping through album covers.

Manchester in 1977.

Over the next few years, I became more politically aware. By the time I was 13, I had started watching the nightly news. My parents played CBC Radio religiously, including the evening news program As It Happens. Crucially, it was a time when I realized that music – classic and contemporary – held valuable lessons in history through protest songs. I didn't always understand the message behind some of those songs, but the passion and emotion were undeniable.

Journalists Barbara Frum and Alan Maitland, hosts of
As It Happens in the late 70s.

War, the third record from Irish post-punk rock band U2, was released in February, 1983. The lead single, New Year's Day, was issued a month earlier and was getting some airplay on London, Ontario, radio stations, mainly CHRW broadcasting from what is now known as Western University. I was a late convert to the band even though U2 concert shirts were popular at my high school and albums clearly displayed at local music shops. Frankly, I wasn’t convinced the Irish band was worth spending my hard-earned dollars on.

Album cover for the single release of New Year's Day.

That summer, in 1983, U2 released their first live album, the soundtrack to a  film taken of their 1983 American concert tour. Shot at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, Under A Blood Red Sky elevated the band significantly in North America. Furthermore, the video of the protest song, Sunday Bloody Sunday, was clipped from the concert film. When it aired on television, I recorded it on the family VCR along with other rock videos. Ostensibly, I was crafting a mixed video cassette of songs, Saturday Night Live episodes and comedy bits. That summer, I probably watched that cassette 50 times.

The song, Sunday Bloody Sunday, relates to two events of sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants that occurred in Ireland. The first was on Sunday, November 21, 1920, in Dublin during The Irish War of Independence. The tragedy began with an IRA assassination operation led by Michael Collins that killed 15 members and associates of the "Cairo Gang",  a group of undercover British Intelligence officers. In response, British forces raided a Gaelic football match, opening fire on spectators and players, killing or critically injuring an additional 15.

News Article about Bloody Sunday and Michael Collins.

The second event occurred on Sunday, January 30, 1972. Sometimes called The Bogside Massacre, British military forces shot 26 unarmed citizens during a protest march in the Bogside area of Derry, Ireland. The march, organized by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association,  protested the imprisonment without trial for Irish dissidents. Later, two British tribunals cleared the soldiers of any wrongdoing, a contentious decision that is still considered a whitewashing of these tragic events.

Irish Times article following the events of Bloody Sunday, 1972.

In the early 1980s, before information on the internet was at my fingertips, it was the music of protest artists who helped me better understand history and my place in the world. In addition to U2, others were The Clash, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, John Lennon and Elvis Costello. They sparked important conversations with my friends. We didn't get everything right. It was tough to fact check opinion in 1983. However, it is not surprising that so many of those artists occupy spots on The 500 list. War is one of five U2 records on the 2012 list and, even though "The Troubles" came to a shaky peace agreement in 1998, the themes on that record still resonate today -- particularly in light of the horrific events currently unfolding in Gaza and the still-fragile Irish pact. I thought about The Troubles a lot as I reflected on the impactful lyrics from Sunday Bloody Sunday.

"The trenches dug within our hearts,

And mothers, children, brothers sisters torn apart.

How long, how long must we sing this song?

How long?

How long?"