REM: Life’s Rich Pageant (U.K. Import)

Song: “Dream (All I Have To Do)

The Internet has killed the art of searching for a copy of a song.


This was the song. The song. I looked for it everywhere. One night watching 120 Minutes on MTV, I saw the video for this cover, and fell in love. I would ask every music store, search music books, and ask every REM fan I knew. Nobody had this song. Nobody knew about this song. I knew it was from a documentary called Athens, GA, a movie I still haven’t found.

Years went by. I never passed a used record store without searching their REM section, without asking the boy behind the counter if he knew of this song. Every single person tried to convince me that I’d heard Buddy Holly and was mistaken, or that this was a random live track I’d heard. But I saw the video. I knew it existed.

Then. I was standing in my favorite tiny record store in downtown Houston, going through REM imports, and I found it. It was, coincidentally, a bonus track on my favorite REM album. (If you don’t love “Swan Swan H,” then you don’t love me.) I bought it and played the song out, sticking it as the closer for most mix tapes I made for the next couple of years. It’s a wonderful cover of a perfect song, so if you get a chance, check it out. It was my musical mission throughout most of high school.

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