Chords for REM - Interview Athens, GA 1988

[Db] _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bbm] _
_ _ [Db] _ _ [Ebm] No peace I [Gb]
[G] find.
_ [Eb] _ [Db] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
[Ebm] Peace [Ab] keeps jaw on [Dbm] my mind.
We're kind of new in [B] town.
_ [F] There's a famous landmark here now.
_ [Bb] Well, there's the double barrel cannon, which dates back to the Civil War.
_ _ _ _ It owns itself.
_ _ The previous owner of the property that the tree was on left the property around the tree to the tree.
I [A] see.
[E] So now the road even has this [Gb] little zigzag around [Am] the tree because they [N] can't take that property for the road.
_ _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ OEM?
Yes.
And who are they?
REM.
[Gb] It [E] _ _ _ _ _
was [Eb] the tree, the double barrel cannon, and [E] REM. _
You have a full story on the double barrel cannon?
[Bb] Yeah, [C] I think I did.
Well, it was a double barrel cannon that had a chain connecting both [G] cannonballs.
And the idea was they'd come out and mow [A] down.
Right.
[Bb] The chain would just mow down the enemy.
What happened was one came out a little sooner than the other.
[E] And just flipped around and killed the people.
Killed the people firing the guns.
So they used it one time.
This time [B] around we wrote tons and tons of songs and threw away 15 or whatever.
Because we had this feeling that we had to go somewhere.
_ [Em] _ _ _ Michael's little train was [Eb] fairly distinct.
[D] And our playing styles are [B] kind of distinct.
But we [F] wanted to write stuff that really [Dm] didn't sound like what we'd done.
[D] So yeah, we switched [F] it around.
There are [E] songs that we wrote that I thought were really good that we threw out.
But [G] it sounds like this.
[Ab] And [E] this record kind of has more of an edge.
_ Had [G] times where we had done [D] four and we [A] couldn't quite do five.
The [F] recording studio for this record.
Were there ever any times when you felt like, no, we shouldn't record [Eb] that song.
Because that actually sounds too much like REM.
One of the ways we got around to this record was when we were writing songs switching [G] instruments.
I play [F] drum, [Gb] [B] mandolin on a couple [E] and bass on [B] one.
And it kind of makes us break out of our [G] stereotypical roles.
[B] I mean, I'm the world's worst [N] drummer.
So of course when I'm playing, [Ab] you're going to have something [Eb] wholly unlike what we've done in the past.
Are you going to play drums on the road?
I don't know.
Maybe I'll teach it to Bill.
And then I'll play the guitar part.
He has to teach it to me.
So could Bill play anything?
_ [Em] Actually, it's such a bad part that it's possible that he might not be able to, being a good drummer.
In many of the videos that you've done, there's a constancy in black and white images, lots of [N] movement.
And it never seems like we ever get to look at any member of the band for longer than a second.
We're not that interested in protecting [A] ourselves as [Bb]
to [G] _ _ _ _ get across an idea.
[Ab] Not really cloud [G] the song up with [Ab] such a strong visual image [A] that you're unable really to hear the [Ab] song and just hear it and kind of use your own image.
And that's [Eb] something that we kind of struggle with a lot. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ [Eb] You think I still wind up too much in the songs?
Terribly, too much.
[A] No, I think you're fine.
[D] Oh, my [A] God.
Is there a central idea [G] to the Green album?
Michael feels that it's kind of a hopeful record.
He was trying to be kind of uplifting and hopeful in his words.
But his idea of hopeful and uplifting is not necessarily the same as anyone [A] else's.
Without writing [G] mindless music and without [Eb] writing music that is simply for _ [Gbm] kind of [A] a [Ab] Bacchanalian [G] release,
I think that [Gm] uplifting is a very, very strong thematic music _ [G] this year, and hopefully it will carry over into other.
[Abm] As compared to Document, Green seems to be a much more personal [Bb] album.
I think the idea that the record is more personal comes from [B] the fact that I'm using more first-person singular in _ [Am] the [Eb] songs.
It's I and you.
It's I, I, I.
The world leader platoon, inside out, [Bb] hair shirt, _ [Ab] rather than we, which was used [Gb] a lot on [G] Document.
And tended towards almost anthemic, kind of [Bb] caustic vitriol rather than a more _ personal thing.
Personal, it's [Gm] really important to [Ab] point out, I think, that [Gm] it's not necessarily me.
I'm not setting [Eb] up characters like, say, Tom Waits might do.
[D] _ _ _