My Top 1000 Songs #753: The Flowers Of Guatemala

[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.] 

There were plenty of truly pretty moments on R.E.M.'s first few albums (see, e.g., "So. Central Rain," my favorite R.E.M. song, off 1984's Reckoning). But "The Flowers Of Guatemala" offers transplendent beauty beyond anything found on their first 3.5 LPs (opening the door to the similarly stunning ballads found on later works). On 1986's Life's Rich Pageant, the band moved beyond the mid-fi college radio jangle, and while those early albums still sound fantastic to me, the sturdier production here gives the majesty of "Flowers" the sonic boost it deserves. 

In some ways it's a more traditional song than what had come before--there's even a rare guitar solo!--with its distinctive build from hushed ballad to swooning anthem and back again. But it's still distinctively R.E.M., particularly in the multi-part vocals (I'm not sure if it's Stipe and Mills, or Stipe handling multiple parts); and after the deliberate mumbles of the jangle era, Stipe's vocals are becoming more discernible, albeit still just barely hinting at darkness amidst the beauty--yeah, those flowers sound magnificent, but what's buried beneath them?

Sadly, this one was never a live staple--though maybe it deserves to be left intact in its striking studio form?--but here's a pretty rough video of a 1987 performance.