If there’s a rainy theme to the previous Jesus And Mary Chain album, there’s a fiery theme to this one. Fireplace, a kind of Bowie-esque tune with its swirling waltz time and use of saxophone. Oddfellows Local 151, a brooding way to finish the album about local drunks and its refrain of “Firehouse!” and, of course, one of REM’s most well-known tunes (at least from this period), The One I Love with its chorus cry of “Fire!” (pronounced “Fi-yer-er-her!" by Michael Stipe).
Document is the first collaboration with producer Scott Litt, and it defines the sound of the era with some of REM’s best (in my opinion) work. The production is more clear, the vocals less mumbled and more clear and, even if Stipe’s lyrics remain on the opaque side, there’s much more of an underlying sense of songs that are about something, often with some great fun scansion going on.
Exhuming McCarthy, for example includes the lines “You're sharpening stones, walking on coals, to improve your business acumen” and “Enemy sighted, enemy met, I'm addressing the realpolitik” which both fit into the beat beautifully but also paint a tone poem of hard-hearted pragmatism and competitiveness. As with the previous album (Jesus And Mary Chain’s Darklands) there’s also a sense of borrowing and updating Sixties music. King of Birds seems to borrow from The End (The Doors) while what has always been one of my favourite tracks from the album, Disturbance At The Heron House, has a Byrds-esque flavour to the opening guitar riff (at a guess something involving D/DSus2/DSus4 to get that little flick effect). Crosby!
Yes, this is one that dates back to my student days but I haven’t heard for a very long time. It was good to revisit it, and I think I appreciate some of the slower tracks more now than I did then - I didn’t care so much for the slightly discordant and disturbing nature of Oddfellows Local 151 back then, for instance, but it really intrigued me this time.
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