R.E.M. “Lifes Rich Pageant” released 30 years ago on this date, July 28th 1986.  Their 4th studio album, Lifes Rich Pageant was REM’s most successful record to that point, reaching #21 on the Billboard charts in the US.

My favorite tracks are “Begin the Begin,” which is a perfect way to start off an album while teaching a bit of Pilgrim history for good measure, “I Believe” all gloriously upbeat musically and lyrically and “Swan Swan H” a gorgeously mournful track full of poetic imagery that I totally don’t get (I guess it’s another history lesson, this time for the Civil War, but what the hell is a hair chain?!):

Swan, swan, hummingbird, hurrah
We are all free now
What noisy cats are we
Girl and dog, he bore his cross

Swan, swan, hummingbird, hurrah
We are all free now
A long, low time ago
People talk to me

Johnny Reb, what’s the price of fans
Forty apiece or three for one dollar
Hey, captain, don’t you want to buy
Some bone chains and toothpicks

Night wings, or hair chains?
Here’s your wooden greenback, sing
Wooden beams and dovetail sweep
I struck that picture ninety times

I walked that path a hundred ninety
Long, low time ago
People talk to me

A pistol hot, cup of rhyme
The whiskey is water, the water is wine
Marching feet, Johnny Reb
What’s the price of heroes?

Six and one, half dozen the other
Tell that to the captain’s mother
Hey, captain, don’t you want to buy
Some bone chains and toothpicks?

Night wings, or hair chains?
Swan, swan, hummingbird, hurrah
We are all free now
What noisy cats are we

And of course “Superman” is one of my favorite REM songs of all time – soaringly uplifting and anthemic sung by bassist Mike Mills rather than Michael Stipe; “Superman” is a cover originally recorded in 1969 as the B-side to The Clique’s “Sugar on Sunday.”