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Thursday, 28 July 2022

Bittersweet Me

 


 2022 Charity Shop Purchases #34 - R.E.M. - Bittersweet Me (CD single)

As I mentioned on my recent post featuring Mindbomb it was not until BHF, my fourth and final charity stop, in Kilmarnock that I struck lucky.

The first  CD that caught my fancy was Bittersweet Me the second single taken from R.E.M.s 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Coincidentally the only other CD single I have by them is E-Bow the Letter the first single of the album.

As with E-Bow the songs appear in a variety of formats including soundchecks ,live and acoustic versions.Rol, it is probably best that you give the third track a wide berth. In their defense in it considerably better than the version by Glenn Gregory

Tucked into the inner sleeve I noticed a small yellowing piece of paper. It turns out it was a receipt for the original purchase at 10.34 am on 26/10/96 in Our Price in Kilmarnock. Sadly Our Price and any other record shops in Kilmarnock are now long gone.

Yesterday a band who sound like R.E.M. - today the real thing

R.E.M. - Bittersweet Me (Memphis soundcheck)

R.E.M. - Undertow (Live - Atlanta)

R.E.M. - Witchita Linesman (Live - Houston)

R.E.M. - New Test Leper (Acoustic - Seattle studio)

6 comments:

  1. An example of the b-sides being better than the a-sides, especially Wichita Lineman!

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  2. The Robster is, of course, the blogosphere's expert on all things R.E.M. and I'm not going to argue with him. I'm quite fond of that alt version of New Test Leper.

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  3. Ah yes, the heart skips a little on finding slips of paper/receipts etc in old purchases, normally stuff you've bought second hand obviously, but the excitement usually evaporates pretty quickly. Once in a while you'll find a shopping list, an album review or newspaper cutting if you're lucky but I've yet to find anything of substance - an existential paean to a lost love would be good. I live in hope though.

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