Release date: 7/11/1988 | Length: 3:55 | Release: Green | SuE: #99

Feed me banks of light

I welcome challenges to the belief that Green‘s three mandolin-based songs are ranked in the following order: You Are the Everything > Hairshirt > The Wrong Child. I’ve never flexed on this opinion, not even come close. Hairshirt exists as an unglamorous album track, one that neither amplifies the album nor drags it down.

Lacking a chorus, and any coherent melody that Green had in spades, Hairshirt becomes a late-record interlude. Despite the haunted atmosphere to the song, it’s one of being set free from harmful restraints. At a basic level, a hairshirt is a garment worn typically amongst ardent religious followers as a means of penance, as the harsh, bristling robe serves as a minor punishment for one’s sins.

It’s not uncommon in R.E.M. songs for religious imagery to serve as a larger metaphor for Stipe’s vision. To the unconcerned onlooker, it would appear that Stipe is a devoutly devotional man, however his words run deeper than a simple one-dimensional meaning. “It’s a beautiful life, My life” sings Stipe, as the proverbial hairshirt is lifted. What burden has been lifted? Who’s to say. The narrator refers to themselves as a dog in the opening line, though whether this be playfully or derogatorily is another question: “I am not the type of dog that could keep you waiting”.

This song almost feels like a precursor to the acclaimed Country Feedback, one album later. This song was not slaved over, and sounds very stream-of-consciousness. Some lines are like unfinished poetry, a draft that reads more beautifully when uneven.

I could walk into this room

And the waves of conversation are enough

To knock you down in the undertow

My one new addition to the commentary around Hairshirt is a cover version, by Gameface singer Jeff Caudill. His vocals are an honest tribute to Michael Stipe, however the song feels infinitely more cathartic than the 1988 original. There’s an extra minute on this version, as the song soars away once the restrictiveness of the narrator’s trials are released.

Release date: 07/11/88 | Length: 3:10 | Release: Green | SuE: #120

This light is here, to keep you warm

From an album that gave us silliness (Stand), seriousness (World Leader Pretend) and sweetness (You Are the Everything), it only seems apt that Green ends with one of the most wholesome moments in R.E.M.’s great discography. It was the biggest indication of the group’s internal experimenting, switching around instruments and producing what sounds like a jam.

The title of the song is actually shrouded in a little mystery. Most copies of the album do not list the track on the back of the record, and the disc has a blank space after the track number. This has led to numerous different titles, mostly along the same line: ‘Untitled Eleventh Song’, ’11’, ‘Untitled Eleven’, but the vast majority of places entitle this Untitled.

Peter Buck takes over on the drumkit, and produces a primitive yet charming beat that an accomplished drummer such as Bill Berry probably wouldn’t have been capable of. Mike Mills adds a fun organ jolt as the song restarts, and it just feels like such a happy song. The whole vibe of the Mike’s overlapping harmonies and Michael’s clean vocal takes conjures up an image of the band at their most cohesive and tightly-knit.

The lyrics are a message to Michael’s family whilst on the road, hundreds of miles away from them: ‘I stayed up late, to hear your voice’, ‘I made a list, of things to say…All I really want to say, hold her’. So many songs have been written about life on tour and the chasm that opens up between home-life and road-life, but usually they’re tinged with anxiety and depression. Untitled is a flip of this, seeking optimism and appreciation of family ties when they seem to far away. It’s slightly criminal that this was Green‘s lowest ranking song on Slicing Up Eyeballs’ public poll of R.E.M. songs back in 2017.