"Begin" to "End"

[treehat]

Just an observation: the first song on R.E.M.'s retrospective is Begin The Begin and the last is It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel FIne).

Also, the second disc (on the special edition) contains some unreleased bits, including a very early version of Bad Day - it's easy to see how it turned into two songs, the music turned into the music for End Of The World, while the lyrics later became Bad Day with only a few changes. It's just plain fun seeing - hearing - these things.

Also, the liner notes booklets have comments on the songs by the various band members. It's interesting to see what they say about the varying songs.

Comments

[octan.livejournal.com]

I find it amusing that while End of the World and Bad Day are the only two R.E.M. songs I've ever heard, I spotted some obvious similarities right off the bat. (e.g. the lines "Please don't take a picture" and "It's time I had some time alone" start out exactly the same way.) Given that, I'm not really surprised.

I really need to get ahold of (or place a hold on) some R.E.M. albums at the library this semester.