Ages of You
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| “Ages of You” | |||||
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| Song by R.E.M. | |||||
| Album | Dead Letter Office | ||||
| Genre | Alternative rock | ||||
| Length | 3:39 | ||||
| Label | I.R.S. Records | ||||
| Writer | Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe | ||||
| Producer | Mitch Easter Don Dixon |
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| Dead Letter Office track listing | |||||
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"Ages of You" is a song by alternative rock band R.E.M. It was one of the first songs they'd written.
The song rose from the ashes of another early R.E.M. song, "Burning Down." According to guitarist Peter Buck, as recounted on the Dead Letter Office liner notes, "When we got tired of ["Burning Down"], we kept the two pieces that we liked and rewrote the rest to come up with "Ages of You." We got tired of that one, also."
It was intended to be a track on the band's EP Chronic Town, but producer Mitch Easter felt it let down the tracklist – "Gardening at Night," "Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)," "1,000,000," and "Stumble." Easter felt that the song "Wolves, Lower" was a better and stronger song in the context of the EP.
As a result, "Ages of You" was relegated to b-side status, appearing on the 7- and 12-inch versions of the single "Wendell Gee" in 1985. (The actual recording was from the sessions for the band's 1984 album Reckoning.) Both "Ages of You" and its "companion piece" (as Buck called it), "Burning Down," were featured on the aforementioned Dead Letter Office B-side compilation album in 1987. The ending of the Dead Letter Office version differs slightly from the original 7" version, editing out the applause at the track's end. A live version, recorded at the Paradise Theater in Boston on July 13, 1983, can be found on the second disc in the special collector's edition version of And I Feel Fine: The Best of the I.R.S. Years, a 2006 compilation of the band's I.R.S. Records work.
Though released only as a promotional single, "Ages of You" garnered enough airplay to chart at #39 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
[edit] References
- Black, Johnny (2004). Reveal: The Story of R.E.M.. London: Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-776-5.
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