Another R.E.M. song, and another one from Murmur too. On the few posts I’ve covered for the tracks from this album, I’ve gushed about how it’s one of my favourites, what it is that made me like it so much and how it happened. It’s a story that you may want me to get over. But I’ll just put a different spin on how I usually tell it. December 2017 I was going through the album for the second time after hearing it years prior and forgetting about it. Opener ‘Radio Free Europe’ set things at a high bar – now I recognise it as being one of the best first songs on an album that I know. ‘Pilgrimage’ is the track that follows and, with my expectations lifted to great heights, I didn’t want to be disappointed not to have that 1-2 punch effect that the opening two tracks of an album can have.

I remember really listening to the verses, analysing which direction the track was going to take, because they’re very unassuming. They’re carried by an infectious melodic riff simultaneously played on the bass, piano and vibraphone. Michael Stipe sings these short, sharp lyrical phrases with tons of space in between. The verses were just fine. But then there’s the sudden rise in mood with the arrival of the pre-chorus in which Stipe announces the pilgrimage has gained momentum, which in turns opens up into the first of many soaring choruses that occur throughout the album. Just as soon as it gets going, it returns back to the more closed-in feeling for the second verse. It’s not long after that the chorus arrives again, but this time Mike Mills and Bill Berry join in on vocal harmonies to add a whole other dimension to the proceedings. By this point, I think I was sold on the track. Might have even been singing along to it too. I was so into it that I was totally caught off-guard by that unexpected double-take of the riff at the end that sounds like a production error. Fair to say, the track did complete that 1-2 combo that I was hoping for.

Get the goosebumps to this day when I listen to this track. Truly, those three-way harmonies between Stipe, Mills and Berry alongside the strident chord progression within the choruses just make for such a glorious piece of music. Again, the lyrics here are meant to conjure up interpretation rather than telling it to you straight. In my opinion, on the one hand I have a feeling that the words were written to mirror the movement of the music. I mean, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the words “the pilgrimage has gained momentum” are sung just as the the backing instruments do the same. On the other hand, I want to say there’s probably something religious in there that could be taken into account. Pilgrimages, speaking in tongues… usually things you may associates with church and the like. I’m leaning more towards that first hand though.