Nightswimming - R.E.M.

I went through a stage of really liking R.E.M. back in the 90s before I reached saturation point with their music a few years ago. I still occasionally enjoy spinning the odd R.E.M. album but listen to them a lot less these days. Nightswimming was released in 1993 and is so very different to the usual R.E.M. sound, which is what first caught my attention.

As a pianist, I love how this entire song is built around a single, circular piano line (and a few of its variations) played repeatedly. The string arrangement was done by the legendary John Paul Jones and Songfacts tells me that it was written and played on the same piano featured in Derek and the Dominos' Layla; that's a pretty cool.To be honest, I've barely ever listened to the lyrics or much beyond the piano part and orchestration, but I'm allowed to be biased. ;-)