I've got a feeling Richard may have given me this album, after I rudely returned his gift of Shoot Out the Lights. Richard was responsible for getting me into R.E.M. in the first place: it was when he was studying in Boulder, Colorado and he gave me a cassette, telling me it was this amazing underground American band he'd discovered over there. When I saw it was R.E.M. — Life's Rich Pageant — I scoffed at first, just because what I'd read in the NME didn't augur well, but I listened and gradually fell in love with what I heard.
I remember hearing the story of Voice of Harold on a radio interview at the time this album came out. Michael Stipe in the studio deciding to sing the sleeve notes of an album to the backing of another R.E.M. song; and it works very well indeed. I think I prefer this ad-libbed version to the original song (though I haven't heard the original, have I? to the best of my knowledge, I've yet to hear either Reckoning or Murmur, but am rectifying that as I type). It adds weight to the argument that Stipey could sing the telephone directory and still make it moving. Actually that's not quite true, the text has some great bits waiting to be animated, but few other voices could sing "On and on the songs roll and soon you are caught up / in the sermon in each rendition as you come to feel / the devotion and dedication that is poured forth. / Suddenly, you know they're real, they mean it!" and not have it sound gauche and silly. It's really hard to say what it is about the voice, which superficially sounds ordinary and undistinguished, that gives it such authority. But whatever it is, I suspect R.E.M. wouldn't be half the band they are/were without it.
Another footnote for you, because, well, I like to toss a few things out on the Internet for the benefit of the three people who might be interested and might find this via googling (and I know the joy of finding such arcane trivia myself). Listening to Walter's Theme, I recognised the lyrics "This is David, I've got a hat the size of Oklahoma" as something I'd heard previously from the mouth of David Thomas, with the same phrasing and everything. Turns out it's a quote from Pere Ubu's Lonesome Cowboy Dave ("My name is David, / and I've got a hat the size of Oklahoma. / I've got shoes that look like Florida…"). Pass it on, impress your friends.
Those cover versions of Velvet Underground, Aerosmith and Roger Miller, though: they do very little for me.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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