The continuing adventures of “Eric’s Trip Around the Sun”. One final trip with the iPod.
For a band that despised the road trip song, R.E.M. was clever enough to write songs that felt very visual. “Reckoning” is maybe the perfect album when driving through a state like Nebraska with not much to see but big sky surrounding you. It finds a way of being Americana without being obnoxious about it. The subliminal cover with the serpent that includes the various song titles off the album, done by the Reverend Howard Finster doubles down on their predecessor by identifying that the band’s not playing
I have always had a soft spot for R.E.M.’s ‘Burning Down’. Now, even though the song was released as a B-side for ‘Wendell Gee’, the song was recorded during the Reckoning sessions and feels a bit more appropriate for that album, such as the lead in. It is not a very complex song and has similarities to ‘Ages of You’, another early song that ended up as a B-Side. I have felt that R.E.M. songs carry different degrees of importance and this one is not thought-provoking lyrically, even though the song’s lyrics