Night Garden: Berry, Buck, Mills, Stipe [R.E.M.]1981-1996 Song-by-song*

Try Not To Breathe

Lots of great posts already I will try to add a little.
As already mentioned, it is folk based and to me has some British Folk traits with the waltz like time. The song is strongly modal in Mixolydian mode. By strongly, it uses the V chord of A minor. The mixolydian mode is somber sounding but not as much as a minor mode song. The song is not totally funereal and sorrowful. It fits the lyrics perfectly in that the narrator shows that even though they are to some extent powerless over their fate, they are nonetheless strong and confident until the end even to the point where they want to minimize the trauma to those witnessing. The bridge goes strongly minor sounding and makes me think of the narrator struggling as the end gets closer. The call and response using parts of the melody in the second verse is fantastic.
The song reminds me of British Sea Shanties as well which dealt with the toil and sorrow that can result from being at sea for extended periods. Call and response is prevalent in sea shanties.
Incredible song to say the least. 5/5

 

Try Not To Breathe - one of my favorite songs on this album.... powerful lyrics. Almost too much to bear at times. 5/5

 

Bill always seemed pretty modest. It wouldn't surprise me if he requested the effects on his vocals.

 

my favorite song on this album , loved it first time i heard it and still do 5/5

 

Try Not to Breathe - as @Rose River Bear states lots of great posts already. I am sucker for the waltz-like songs with the folk underpinnings but once again it is the band's strength as vocalists that shines for me. Michael's increasing confidence as a lead singer comes through in spades, Mike's falsetto backing and Bill's unique appearance all add up to a 5/5 for me.

 

I was wondering if anyone else thinks that barely audible beep in the intro sounds like something that you would hear in an ICU unit.

 

He's on Murmur a lot, too.

And...he's the "Brian Wilson" falsetto part on Wendell Gee, and very much in "LIfe And How To Live It", especially on the bridge, there's a lot of vocals on that song actually.

He's sings "It's gonna fall!" and the "Brian Wilson" falsetto during the chorus and bridge of "Fall on Me" He sings on "Near Wild Heaven", and he sings the first "crazy what you could have had" in Country Feedback. (this is mixed down on the album, but audible, but it's very very clear on the demo which is basically just a different mix of the album version.)

I think that he sings these little parts here and there on many of their albums, but yes, it is usually kind of buried and the other two are singing at the same time and his role is defiitely less on Document and Monster and so on.

He's pretty prominent on this song and also on "Find The River." He co-wrote "Man On the Moon" with Peter and I guess he's singing on that one too.

 

Try Not to Breathe has some similarities to this song. Same chord intervals, mixolydian mode and folk style in 6/8. EF is in A Mixolydian, Breathe is in D but the chord intervals are the same. I know.....you can't copyright a chord progression but this song could have been an influence IMO. I don't know if REM ever mentioned it.

 

It is amazing how subtleties in arranging and delivery can disguise these things. I know both songs quite well, will not doubt you on your musicology, but never once did one remind me of the other consciously.

Given the limits of pop songwriting's usual repertoire of chords, it's amazing to me that every song isn't in some substantial degree essentially some other song....but even when they are in some core musicological sense, the little tricks of playing and recording can make it not-obvious to non-pro-musician listeners.

 

Try Not to Breathe: Great song. The theme of death will hang over this entire album. But it’s not a sad and hopeless situation. Here the narrator has no regrets and simply wants to leave this world on her terms. There’s no fear, no final ending; there is instead a sense of transition.

Stipe loves those old time American phrases. I remember an elderly relative who would say, when she felt a sudden shiver, that someone must have just walked over her grave. This idea of time not being entirely linear is intriguing. It is deeply ingrained in some cultures. The change from walking to flying over the grave is a nice poetic decision; or it could just be the way Stipe heard it. Bill is the angel soaring above while the strings float along and the band swings in time.

Everything works on this beautiful track which has only gotten more perfect over nearly 30 years. 5/5

 

The Try Not to Breathe fan club has SHOWN UP in the final hours!

 

TNTB
Usually I'm not a big fan of waltzes but this is emotionally resonant and beautiful - a song about death that you can dance to.
5/5

 

There are a lot of songs that you hear often as a kid that unconsciously work their way into your music years later, and you could never place where the influence came from until someone points it out. I don't doubt that most or all of the members of the band heard "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (it was probably Gordon Lightfoot's biggest song in the US), but I would guess the influence was mostly unconscious.

 

Say, I remember hearing that Michael said that Bill was technically the best singer in the band. You seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the band, is that true?

I guess I did know more than I thought, since I knew about all the instances you listed except the "crazy what you could have had." I hear him really clearly singing "take a turn" at the beginning of the choruses on "Pilgrimage", he's very prominently singing "heaven is yours" in "Letter Never Sent" and "Harborcoat" his vocal is even more prominent than Mike's.

Edit: I just realized it's my R.E.M. anniversary. October 14th was the first time I bought one of their records.

 

did you get a sitter and take the band out for a nice dinner?

but seriously, how do you know this? Do you keep receipts for all the records you buy and stick them in the album covers?

 

I can't find anything to support it, but I always thought that Sweetness Follows was primarily written by Berry as well.

 

Peter wrote that one (there is evidence.) Bill was the primary writer of "Everybody Hurts," though. Here are the songs I've been able to dig up info read about:

• "Perfect Circle" often cited by band
• "two songs off Reckoning " written "back to front", but I don't know which, I guess it's "Second Guessing" and maybe "Letter Never Sent", but I really don't know -- cited in a couple of biographies
• "Can't Get There From Here", - biographeis"Driver 8"(verses only, Peter wrote the rest while Bill went to buy a case of beer) - an interview I read with Peter; one other song from Fables (maybe "Kahoutek"?)
• "Cuyahoga" (music co-written with Mike: Bill wrote bassline, song is similar ot "Cuyahoga") -interview with Peter circa 1996
• "Underneath the Bunker"(Peter "maybe threw in one chord") -- same interview
• came up with mandolin riff on "Hairshirt" -- R.E.M. Inside Out
• Lead instrument on "Memphis Train Blues" jam -- ditto
• I think he wrote the verses of "RAdio Song"and maybe some of the lyric because he sings the second verse on the demo -- demo evidence
• Music on "Texarkana" -- Mike Mills Twitter
• "Everybody Hurts" -- biographies
• "Man On the Moon" (just started it, Peter finished it) diffuser.fm

Of course I think they all embellish and change each other's songs, though.

 

I don't have kids! So I just went out with my copy of Lifes Rich Pageant and we got Italian. The waiting staff must have been moved because the expressions on their faces couldn't be described as normal.

I've only done the receipts thing a few times. I remembered because I have an old friend whose birthday is today and I remember getting their five IRS records all together that same day.

How did I miss this opportunity?

 

I "seem" to have an encyclopedic knowledge, but I just find a lot of this stuff out right before I post, and then I don't forget it. I just have a lot of books to consult. I don't know if Michael ever said that. But he may have. I have read a lot of interviews, mostly with Peter and Mike and then I can never find them again and then I get these ideas that they said something or other but I can never find it so I'm never sure. That may be what's happening here with you, i.e., maybe you read that somewhere but don't know where.

 

Our votes for "Try Not To Breathe"

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Today's song is "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight", written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe. Produced by Scott Litt and R.E.M. Strings arranged and conducted by John Paul Jones.

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite - Wikipedia

Background: The song has some musical quotes from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens. To avoid being sued they called the owners of the copyright and paid them part of the royalties and agreed with them to record a cover of the original, which was released as a B-side.

Peter:

Mike:

Michael Stipe: vocals
Peter: guitars
Mike Mills: organ, bass, vocals
Bill Berry: drums and percussion

The song was released as a single and charted in several countries; it hit #1 in Iceland and was the third biggest hit of the year there. In the US it charted at #24 and #29 on the Alternative and Mainstream Rock airplay charts; in the UK, at #17.

It was also released on IN Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 in 2003.

 

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite

The lyrics are silly. Michael would later refer to them as "over-caffeinated." It's weird, because the music still sounds dramatic and a little mysterious. Some may knock this one, but I really like it. The strings are fantastic, and it gets stuck in your head for days!

5/5

 

Here's the demo....

 

I was listening to this last night & ive got mixed feelings. On the one hand it’s exuberant & catchy as hell. I love the pileup of syllables in the chorus. And although the verses don’t make a lot of sense they effectively pile up images … until the Dr Seuss line, which then leads to the Cat in the Hat bridge, all of which I find pretty cringey (incl the kinda affected-sounding laugh). And I can’t believe how wheezy Stipe sounds in the outro choruses! He sounds like he’s really struggling to sing them.

I guess a 3/5?

 

"The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" - I could never figure out what Stipe was singing in the chorus, and now that I've looked at the lyrics online, I am no more enlightened about what this song is about. It's just an annoying goof, another mediocre excuse for a song from a band that used to create exciting, emotional music without any difficulty. The strings are just polishing a turd. What a waste of everyone's time. 1/5.