Retro Video Unit (3/7/14)

Apologies for forgetting about this yesterday... I don't always choose the clips ahead of time, and if I haven't found one it means I'm more likely to forget to do it on the correct day.

Anyway, I was thinking about the 1980s and that led me to R.E.M., one of the biggest bands of that decade. I had the good fortune to see them very early on, in the spring of '83 at BU's old Walter Brown Arena (since replaced by the Agganis Arena), where they were the opening act for The English Beat. Murmur had just come out, and seeing them was a genuine revelation.

Within a couple of years they were one of MTV's mid-decade darlings, producing multiple videos for the songs on the album Fables of the Reconstruction. "Can't Get There From Here" was a bit more lighthearted than some of the other songs on that album, and the video is suitably goofy.



And of course it has old cars in it, which is another reason I like it. The purplish car is a 1960 Ford Galaxie, the top of the line four-door sedan available that year. The one seen more briefly, with Bill Berry climbing out of the trunk, is a 1966 Ford Thunderbird.