It was back in August last year if the wee box up in the top left hand corner is functioning correctly.Now I've admitted previously that I was slow to catch-on to R.E.M. and I am quite jealous of those who cottoned on from the start and got to see them before they became staples of the arena/stadium tours. I was too engrossed in the ways of UK jingly-jangly indie pop to pay any attention to what was coming out of the USA , and besides, one look at the cover of this 1984 single and spotting that one of them had long hair was enough to put me off taking them seriously at the time.
But I should have trusted my ears and not my eyes. For quite simply, this single, which is rather astonishingly approaching its 26th birthday now, is what I reckon to be the second best ever released by the band (Electrolite remains my personal favourite).
mp3 : R.E.M. - (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
A tale of long-distance love told over a quite exquisite tune that can't quite make its mind up if it is indie, pop or country.
My own love for this track is so strong that on the one occasion business took me to the Washington DC area back in 2002, I took a commuter train out to Rockville, where I had a walk around for about an hour and took some photos. It was, and I guess still is, a lovely little town.
Here's yer b-sides of the 12" single that I picked up second hand a couple of years ago:-
mp3 : R.E.M. - Wolves
mp3 : R.E.M. - 9-9*
mp3 : R.E.M. - Gardening At Night*
*Recorded Live at 'The Eldorado', Paris France on Good Friday 20 April 1984 in mono
Happy Listening.
6 comments:
Excellent! This single was a highlight when I saw REM at the Felt Forum in NYC, after a good opening set by the Feelies. Went with a crowd of law classmates, all of us shouting along 'Don't Go Back to Law School' to our amusement and likely no one else's. Lord, that was 25 years ago! Still a brilliant song. A Saints Superbowl victory and a great TVV post to wrap up a fine Sunday. Well, this is going to be a good week! Cheers!
Great record. One of my favourites of their early stuff.
They were a great band around this point.
Wot no So Central Rain?!?!
;)
I remember hearing Rockville on Kid Jensen one gloaming spring evening in 84, & at first thinking it a v.poor & chummily-rawking follow-up to a superb 45. Heard it a second time later that week & immediately realised I was being a mere churl.
It's funny, it could've been a lab experiment to create the very polar opoosite of pretty much everything that was hip 'n' cool in the UK that spring - I recall some of the inkies at the time who'd lionised Murmur gagging on its apparent good-time choogle - but it's that same guilelessness that's allowed it to age so well. You really would have to have the hardest of hearts not to tap a toe or crack a smile to this one.
(For all that, & after all these near-26 years, I still reckon So C-R the better single... & Pretty Persuasion was always the Big Hit That Never Was... but what the Falkirk do I know anyway?)
Many ta's for those B-sides, mind. Used to own the 12'' of this, many many moons ago, & it's great to hear those tracks again - until a couple of mates clubbed together & splashed out on an import copy of Chronic Town for my 18th b'day in 86, they were my only inkling of pre-Murmur R.E.M. You forget what a giddy jangling cyclotron they once were, now that we're all older & that bit jaded. These early live tracks, at this remove, they sound like the Banana Splits playing some Gang of Four.
yrs aye
DMcA
My all time favourite REM track for two reasons...well three...his little 'in the mood' intro mumble just before the band kicks in...secondly, the melody...just gorgeous and well, because it was the first REM song I ever heard...played to me by my good mate Graeme McFall, long ago in a bedroom in EK, Scotland...we were both probably sporting cord jacket and doc martens at the time! Love it still. And that lovely piece of Nashville within 'waste another year' alongside the country-tinged guitar riff. There's another reason. Thanks JC. Sent me off to bed happy.
Belated THANK YOU for this post! Brings back fond memories of obsessively listening to Chronic Town (their first EP) and going to their shows. At the time they sounded like nothing else I'd ever heard.
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