Just as They Play Our Song

Robert Ingpen (Australian, b.1936)

R.E.M.’s debut was released on 8 July 1981.

The band recorded a number of songs with Mitch Easter to use as demos in hopes of getting a record deal. They sent out around 400 cassettes with “Radio Free Europe”, “Sitting Still” on them.

Jonny Hibbert, a law student at the time, heard the cassette and offered to finance a single in exchange for the publishing rights to both songs. Hibbert (who had never released a record before) was dissatisfied with Easter’s production and re-mixed the songs and released it on his Hib-Tone label (Hib-Tone 0001).

Peter Buck reportedly hated the final version of the songs that he smashed a copy of the single and nailed it to his wall.

Skeleton with an orange body. The Electric Physiology. 1886. Frontispiece.