Welcome to the song of the day, where we feature a single track, whether its brand new or older than us, overlooked or overplayed, our favorite or no one’s favorite; as long as its interesting, it can be the song of the day.
On April 19, 1980, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Bill Berry, and Mike Mills played their first show together under the name REM to 150 people at the 11:11 Koffee Club in Athens, Georgia. They had performed without a name on April 5 at a friend’s birthday party. There are no setlists available for either of these shows, but “Gardening at Night” is the second song from the band’s first EP, released after non-album single “Radio Free Europe” and before full-length debut Murmur. The EP, Chronic Town, came out in 1982, and has been long out of print, except for a 2010 Record Store Day limited repressing.
“Gardening At Night” was one of the REM songs I knew well as a child, but as an adult, having noticed that it wasn’t on any studio albums and only appeared on their debut EP, I wondered how I knew it so well. Eventually I realized that it also appears on Eponymous, a 1988 compilation album that my dad played a lot when I was growing up (also the reason I can sing all the words to “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
Header image courtesy of Gossip Brunch.