My Top 1000 Songs #599: Green Grow The Rushes

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Having already cherry-picked a few tracks each from my two favorite R.E.M. albums, Murmur & Reckoning (among others), I should probably give it a rest. So, moving right along... ok, a bit of a cheat, as "Green Grow The Rushes," off 1985's Fables Of The Reconstruction, is probably that record's clearest throwback to the two preceding albums. What can I say; I'm passionately in love with Peter Buck's Rickenbacker chime, and the riff here milks it for all it's worth.

Plus, something truly winsome and nostalgic about the overall vibe, the sweetness in Stipe's vocal delivery, even if I can't make out many of the words and have been silently singing my own made-up version to myself for almost 40 years. (Ok, in reality it's a pointed song about the plight of migrant workers--at least as relevant, if not more so, today--but in my made-up lyrics it's got a cheerier tinge to it, America in all its ugly, wonderful glory.)

Live 1985: