Blue Friday: Camera

There's been a lot of R.E.M. doing the rounds of our blog bubble, lately: firstly, JC at T(n)VV ran an excellent 58-part series on the band's singles, after which The Robster at Is This The Life? picked up the baton with his exceptional Imaginary 7"s series. Then Craig at Plain or Pan wrote an excellent piece about Catapult too.

All of which has prompted me to revisit some of Athens' finest's albums, and in particular Reckoning and Murmur, which are probably my favourites. I was introduced to both these albums in my first year at university by, well, I've mentioned her before, an American girl who moved into our hall at the start of spring term. We hit it off immediately, and remain firm friends thirty years later, despite physical separation and, you know, life.

If this was an upbeat series, I would post We Walk from Murmur, and recount how La Américaine would recall singing it in her freshman year with friends when boozily returning to campus. But this is Blue Friday, so instead I will play, for perhaps the first time in nearly thirty years, Camera from Reckoning. Whenever we would listen to that album, in one or other of our rooms, we would fast-forward past this song (a habit I have retained), for it reminded her too keenly of a close friend who had died just weeks before she, my friend, had come over to England to study. I remember most details of the story - seeing her friend in an open casket, for one. I cannot imagine that. I also remember that a car was involved in the girl's death, adding an extra layer of resonance to this song, since it was written about Carol Levy, the band’s frequent photographer and close friend of Michael Stipe’s, who died in a car accident while the band was touring.

I'm lucky, I guess. Even into my sixth decade, I've never really had to face death like that; sure, extended family have died, but no-one I've felt especially close to, no-one whose departure has left me bereft. It will happen, of course, inevitably. I don't know how well I am equipped to deal with it, but we'll find out, I guess. Until then, here's an achingly sad song from early-period R.E.M.

Post script: completely coincidentally, Swiss Adam at Bagging Area has also written a "there's been a lot of REM on the blogosphere lately, which has got me thinking" post today, about Murmur. It is excellent, definitely worth a read, and it's right here.