Shiny Happy People – R.E.M.

-


Shiny Happy People – R.E.M.


I thought I'd get a bit happier after a couple of sadder posts. This song hit me in 1991, it was a big main steam hit from R.E.M.s album Out of Time. It was the first song of theirs I heard and it started a long standing interest, I bought lots of their albums on cassette tape and played them on the train to work on my Walkman. They had lots of music out previous to this but it didn't appear on my radar. This song is kinda outside their normal stuff, having a guest vocalist, Kate Pierson of the B-52's for starters and a seriously happy vibe. It'll get you dancing and feel good. The video added lots of energy to the track, they look like their having fun, we used to listen to lots of music around that time by watching the videos. R.E.M. were quite a quirky band, Michael Stripe always looked to me like he was playing the character of the lead singer than actually being comfortable out front. As often happens with bands biggest main stream hits they didn't think this song represented them properly. Quite a few bands end up doing something to attract a wider audience and then pretend they didn't do it purpose. After all R.E.M. had some really powerful songs along the way like the 'Losing My Religion' and the painful 'Everybody Hurts', they were not scared to approach the big subjects of life.

But for now, turn this one up and have a boogie.

Here we go.

Favourite lyric : Throw your love around, love me, love me / Take it into town, happy, happy
Location: Rayleigh, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wherever You Will Go – The Calling

-
Image
    Wherever You Will Go – The Calling  No idea where this one came from, total American power ballad, it's well chessey but I love it. I'm a sucker for sentimental songs like this, all about always being with the one you love. But it's not really a happy song, apparently it was written about a husband who had lost his wife of over 50 years. The songwriter, Aaron Kamin , was at his grandmother's best friends funeral and the idea for the song came to him. How the husband who was left behind would have followed his beloved if only he could have. Can he now exist without her? The words almost say that they would come back to haunt you if that was possible, love that strong can't be broken. The need to be together is so strong. But like all good songs, you can take it's message in so many different ways. Also most listeners don't delve to deep into the meanings of songs, they just catch onto the suggested obvious tone of the chorus. The general understanding of
Read more

I Am, I Feel – Alisha's Attic

-
Image
  I Am, I Feel – Alisha's Attic I remember this one from 1996, it came back to my mind yesterday as I was on a songwriting course co-hosted by Shelly McErlaine (born Poole), one half of Alisha's Attic . The group was a duo made up of Sheely and her sister Karen Poole , who happen to come from close to where I grew up in East Essex, UK. They have a famous father, Brian Poole who had a band called Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, they had major success in the 1960s. Shelly is married to Ally McErlaine , from the band Texas , they now have an country band together called Red Sky July along with Charity Hair. Shelly is now a songwriter/producer/talent scout and is an amazing person to listen to about how to craft a song. It seems she has worked with so many huge names, but the biggest thing that came across was her absolute love of music. The song itself is a sorry tale of how a man is taking a girl he's with totally for granted. The lyrics are a very clever reply to how he
Read more

Running Bear – Johnny Preston

-
Image
    Running Bear – Johnny Preston I love this song. It's another one from my childhood, it sounds like a kids song, lots of chanting and takes a bit of imagination to get what's going on. It's actually a love song about two Indian's from different warring tribes, they're not allowed to be together.  This is a proper story song, loads of words, total tongue twister. Songs like this were big in the 50's, it's not an obvious setting to write a song about, I guess Westerns were very popular around the time and Cowboys and Indians were a real hit with the public. All sounding very exotic to us over here in the U.K. anything that shouted American was fantasy. Even as a kid listening to this song as a 45 single on a record player 30 years later, it really caught my ear. It was like listening to a bedtime story in three minutes. Running Bear is a cool Indian name, it gives such a strong image of a powerful fast huge guy and Little White Dove gives the impression of
Read more