R.E.M. have released a remix of their Kurt Cobain tribute “Let Me In” from the band’s 1994 album, Monster. The new version cleans up the original, stripping away the organ and elevating Michael Stipe‘s vocals to the top of the mix.
Stipe told BBC that the song’s transformation reflects his grieving process, as well as the increasingly raw ways in which the band has performed the song over the past two decades.
The R.E.M. frontman recorded the original “Let Me In” with guitarist Mike Mills, who played the song’s central distorted melody on Cobain’s blue Fender, which Courtney Love gave the band after Cobain’s death in April 1994.
“The way it was recorded respond[ed] exactly to that moment, and what it felt like to have had someone that close to us, and who we admired as much as we admired Kurt, take his own life,” Stipe said. “It was horrible.”
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The “Let Me In” remix will appear on R.E.M.’s massive forthcoming 25th anniversary reissue of Monster on November 1. The reissue includes 15 previously unreleased demos, a 25-song concert recording from the band’s 1995 tour, and more.
Listen to both versions of “Let Me In” below.
