Man on the Moon, by REM.
Took 140 days to get to REM, one of the most important bands of my teenage years? It’s not that I heard Green for the first time at summer camp, but that’s where the kids from North Carolina and Georgia taught me that it was Important Music, and that Orange Crush was about Vietnam, man, not soda.
I knew that. I got it, man.
There came a point (again, the record store work, employee discount, and $8.98 bargain bin helped) where I owned every REM album, right up until Monster came out my freshman year of college — honestly, that’s the first CD I remember buying at Tower Records on W. 4th Street.
This song wasn’t a meaningful favorite, but it’s one that sticks in my head today, yeah yeah yeah yeah. Let’s play Twister, let’s play Risk.
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Late decision to add a bassline saved this thing. Also, I can not sing the harmony parts. Which Mike is it with the high voice? Mills? Is there a second Mike? I don’t remember all the details, but I can tell you which road I was driving on when Belong started meaning something to me, and that it was a tape playing in the boom box in my first car, etc., etc., etc.