As the glow of the 30th anniversary celebration wore off, we got news from REM HQ that the band had headed back into the studio to work on the next album. They had started work last year on some demos, but now that we know they have re-convened with producer Jacknife Lee, speculation can begin on when we will see something new.

I would be that the next album will be a 2011 release. I know they espoused a philosophy of working in shorter bursts with “Accelerate,” but for some reason I just have a feeling that we’ll have to wait even if they do manage to finish recording by the end of summer.

That wouldn’t kill me. The re-mastered version of Fables will be coming out later this year. We haven’t heard what the second disc will be yet, but the radio station at the University of Georgia played one song from it so we got a clue. It wasn’t a live track, but instead the demo of an unreleased song.

The Youtube link below has a live version of this song. For years, it was believed to be called “When I Was Young.” The lyrics sounded like the rough draft of “I Believe.” Now we know that it’s called … or at least they are calling it now “Throw Those Trolls Away.”

I have heard the version they played on the radio, and it’s pretty clean and fun. It does include Michael talking to the engineers during one of the instrumental parts so I wonder if it’s a whole set of demos or what. I read somewhere (I forget where) that the recording WUOG played was from a set of demos that isn’t in wide circulation so that could be it. Regardless, I hope it has more than a few surprises. To get a taste, however, here’s “When I Was Young” live from 1985.