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Was chewing the cud with @Dorianlynskey and others yesterday about R.E.M. – and remembered this, from one of the most exciting days of my life. (1/10)
Was working for the Ministry of Sheet Music. Typically, we'd take lyrics from the sleeves of the artists' albums – or, sometimes, if we were working in advance of the album release, the artist's management would fax us them. (2/10)
Occasionally, there'd be a sticky customer: someone who either didn't want to engage or didn't routinely publish their lyrics, for whatever reason. (3/10)
One such customer was Michael Stipe. (4/10)
At some point, we were charged with climbing the Mount Everest of R.E.M. lyrics – It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). It was a hell of a job to decipher, but I gave it my best shot, roping a couple of friends (and fellow R.E.M. fans) in to help. (5/10)
When the transcription was done, we sent the vocal parts off to R.E.M. H.Q. because they'd sought approval. (6/10)
I was fully expecting radio silence and that our collective is-it-that? efforts at transcribing Stipe's 'bombastic sensory overload' would limp out into the big wide world littered with mistakes (as too often happens). (7/10)
But no. (8/10)
Some days later, we had a fax from Athens, Georgia via London. The draft vocal staves, headed "
JMS w. multiple corrections". John Michael Stipe had decided these words were going public (for the first time) exactly as he wrote them. He even corrected punctuation. (9/10)
JMS w. multiple corrections". John Michael Stipe had decided these words were going public (for the first time) exactly as he wrote them. He even corrected punctuation. (9/10)
The biggest thrill for me (for some reason – because I thought it was such a delightfully unexpected bit of technicalese?) was this. (10/10)
