I rarely listen to R.E.M. these days. And if/when I do, it’s usually the early IRS albums. So I’d almost forgotten this “folk dirge” of a song.

Perhaps I have an instinct to disregard their later more commercially successful era just because of those records’ ubiquity – and, conversely, to ignore the later albums altogether.

This morning I was drawn back to this fantastically strange song from 30  years ago by seeing this reel of Michael Stipe duetting onstage with The National’s Matt Berninger, backed by brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner.

He might look like an eccentric guru, or spiritual elder, but Stipe’s still got those weird hand movements we remember from the Losing My Religion video, as if he’s acting out a choreography that’s entirely in his head.

The ‘Mixtape’ concert in Biarritz, celebrating the Dessner twins’ 50th birthdays, was part of the AB100 Festival, a two-day event taking place there and across the French-Spanish border in San Sebastian.

Before they began the song Stipe presented birthday gifts of handmade sculptures to the brothers before explaining that he had begun writing this song in 1975 and completed it with R.E.M. 20 years later in San Sebastian.

Originally released as the first single from R.E.M.’s 1996 album New Adventures In Hi-Fi, E-Bow The Letter is such a great song, with such a strange stream-of-consciousness lyric.

Although Stipe began writing the tune back in 1975, the words involve an unsent letter Stipe wrote to his friend River Phoenix shortly before he died of a drug overdose in 1993.

Whether or not either of the Dessners is using an e-bow on their guitars is a question I am not qualified to answer, though I do know that Peter Buck used one on the original version.

He has performed the song before with other guests, including Thom Yorke, who took the ethereal vocal role played by Patti Smith on the record.