{"id":1734,"date":"2018-10-12T08:53:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T07:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1734"},"modified":"2018-10-11T11:12:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T10:12:17","slug":"song-of-the-week-radio-free-europe-by-r-e-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=1734","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Radio Free Europe&#8221; by R.E.M."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>This is &#8220;Radio Free Europe&#8221; by R.E.M.:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kI5P5VeewyE\" width=\"351\" height=\"220\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bear with me here. I was listening to High on Fire the other day, and for reasons I really don&#8217;t know, it got me idly thinking about Taj Mahal, and in particular, about Taj Mahal as a kid, listening to music from around the world on his shortwave radio. The thought offered a brief moment of happiness, the idea of all that music channeling down the antenna and through the circuits and back out of the speaker into Taj Mahal&#8217;s ear, into his mind, and back out, eventually, through his guitar, his voice, his musicianship. It seemed a little absurd to be thinking about that while listening to loud and fast metal, but then again, I thought, that kind of eclecticism&#8211;not metal per se, but eclecticism&#8211;suits the music and legacy of Taj Mahal, so maybe it&#8217;s not quite as silly as it at first seemed to me. Then again, maybe it is. Anyway, I&#8217;ve posted <a href=\"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=494\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">High on Fire in the past<\/a>, and I posted <a href=\"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1387\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Taj Mahal&#8217;s wonderful interpretation of &#8220;Stack O&#8217; Lee&#8221; <\/a>a couple years ago, so I thought a song about the radio might be an apt alternative to one of those, and here you are with some early R.E.M. When you listen to this live version, and hear the way Michael Stipe sings &#8220;in transit,&#8221; you hear a little of where from Kurt Cobain was taking some of his vocal cues.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Radio%20Free%20Europe%22%20by%20R.E.M.\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;Radio Free Europe&#8221; by R.E.M.: \ufeff Bear with me here. I was listening to High on Fire the other day, and for reasons I really don&#8217;t know, it got [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Radio%20Free%20Europe%22%20by%20R.E.M.\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1734"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1737,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions\/1737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}