Day 27: "Document" - R.E.M. (1987)

I had a long intro originally written here about how insane it is that R.E.M. not only got noticed and signed, but then recorded 8 consistently great albums between 1983 and 1992, cranking out a classic album on average every 13 months.  Instead, I woke up this morning and read the news, and now I want to talk about fear.

listen to me here

Document was recorded in a world where a Republican US President, better known for his role as an entertainer rather than a politician, presided over a world where the imminent threat of global nuclear exchange hung over all of society like a cloud.  Doesn't that sound familiar?  I don't know whether it's a generational thing, a product of my upbringing as someone who grew up in part living on the other side of the Iron Curtain, or whether watching "Threads" as a teenager messed with me in a  major way, but there's not much that scares me more than the idea of a nuclear war.  

Even as a teen I would have apocalyptic nightmares.  I've always feared I would live to see the day when these stupid, destructive weapons were used again, not out of some grim, mathematical necessity for ending a long land war which would have cost many more lives had those bombs not fallen on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but because of some combination of ego, international politics and a crisis escalating out of the control of the people theoretically dealing with it.  The more I read the news, the more convinced I am that my worst fears will be realised.

Listening to Document again now, I hear echoes of how people must also have felt 30 years ago.  "Exhuming McCarthy" and "Welcome to the Occupation", as well as the the more on the nose "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" feel as tonally relevant now as they must have been back in 1987.  

I can only hope that in 30 years time, someone else can be look back at this period in history and marvel at how close to stupidly annihilating ourselves we came, and what great music came about as a result.  

In order for this blog post not to just be an existential scream of anxiety into an uncaring internet, here's a couple of little stories related to this album.

The first, I guess, is more of a cautionary tale than anything else.  I have, in the 41 years I've been alive, been to not one but two weddings where they have used R.E.M.s "The One I Love" prominently in the wedding or the reception.  Please, if you take anything away from this blog at all, please realise that this is not a song appropriate for a wedding unless you are marrying someone just to keep yourself amused while you wait for something better to come along.  Just because the chorus says "This one goes out to the one I love" a bunch, doesn't necessarily mean you should ignore all the other words in the song.

The second is a slightly second hand story, because while I was present when it happened, I somehow missed nearly all of the events surrounding this and only found out about it after the fact.  It was the year 2000, and our local after-hours alternative-music dive bar in Chesterfield was having an "End of the World" party because of course they were.  And me, and Alex, and our extended social circle had all gone because, well, what else were we going to do on New Years Eve?

As midnight approached, the DJ spins up "It's The End Of The World As We Know It", and the postage-stamp-sized dancefloor fills to capacity.  With us that night was a friend I knew through Alex called Big Chris, because his name was Chris, and you can figure out the rest I would imagine.  Chris was on the heavier side, and not much for dancing, but obviously on this night the spirit moved him, and he joined the gathering throng on the dancefloor.

My understanding is that almost as soon as he had hit the floor, he almost literally hit the floor as a combination of drinking, being off-balance on a crowded dance floor, and possibly the girth of the man in question meant that Chris tripped a little, took an awkward step, and managed to shatter several important bones in his ankle to powdery bone dust.  

Chris made a quick transition to "being in agony on the floor", and fortunately Alex was close enough to see what happened, and headed over to Chris's aid.  Some preliminary testing soon made clear that Chris's dancing, standing, or moving at all capacity had been reduced to zero, and Alex went, called a cab, helped Chris limp into it, and took off to the Emergency Room at the local hospital.

And that is how Alex spent midnight at the turn of the millenium in a hospital waiting room.