Album: Green (25th Anniversary)
Year: 1989
. . .
File Under Friends
This is somewhat convoluted. This version of this song was originally on the VHS of Tourfilm — a concert film from their 1989 tour — but when R.E.M. put out the 25th anniversary edition of Green back in 2014, the bonus disc was basically the audio they used for Tourfilm: a concert that was recorded in Greensboro, North Carolina on November 10, 1989.
It gets even more complicated: that the Greensboro concert release kinda replaces perhaps my all-time favorite R.E.M. bootleg, a 1989 radio broadcast from a pair of late April shows in Miami and Orlando called It’s The End of The World … As We Know It!. .
In any event, it was a straight-up great bootleg, redeeming some of the Green songs like “Turn You Inside-Out,” as well as great performances of “I Believe” and Pylon’s “Crazy.” But my favorite song on both the bootleg and Tourfilm was the updated rearrangement of “Perfect Circle,” a chestnut that went all the way back to Murmur.
Put your hair back, we get to leave
Eleven gallows on your sleeve
Shallow figure, winners paid
Eleven shadows way out of place
And while “Perfect Circle” is great on Murmur, the tune itself almost gets lost in its own fuzziness and special effects, a hazy loop of backwards guitar and offbeat drumbeats.
Not so in this live version, which is sparse and focused, evoking the late-night hanging around “Perfect Circle” seems to be about.
Pull your dress on and stay real close
Who might leave you where I left off?
A perfect circle of acquaintances and friends
Drink another, coin a phrase
This live version features the first of their many great designated sidemen — Peter Holsapple from the dBs — playing a more driving variation on the piano part Mike Mills played on Murmur, while Mills holds down the bass part. Meanwhile, Bill Berry — who wrote the music — is playing a straightforward beat, giving this live version of “Perfect Circle” extra power without losing any the sheer and utter beauty of the melody, especially on the choruses.
Heaven assume, shoulders high in the room
Heaven assume, shoulders high in the room
Heaven assume, shoulders high in the room
While the first chorus is Stipe himself, after that, he’s joined by Mike Mills and Bill Berry, whose combined backing “ooooohs” and “ahhhhhhs” are sheer simplicity, and exactly what “Perfect Circle” needs, and indeed, the last minute is basically the three of their voices locking together in a perfect circle of sighing sound.
Almost as good, by the way, is the version they cut for MTV Unplugged in 1991. While it lacks Bill Berry’s drums, Holsapple is playing a organ which doesn’t drive the song so much as weave in and out of it.
“Perfect Circle” from Tourfilm, 1989
“Perfect Circle” MTV Unplugged, 1991
“Perfect Circle” from Murmur, 1983
“Perfect Circle” live 1998
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