Belong, by REM.
Did I once fall in love to this song on a mixtape? Maybe. Had I ever paid much attention to the lyrics, other than something about the barricades and the sea, and the word “belong?” Maybe not. Did playing these two (barely more than one) chords for 3.5 minutes hurt my wrist? Yes.
Half A World Away, by REM.
More REM, from Out of Time, this time, this song, lives rent-free in my head like so many of theirs, but I definitely don’t always understand like 20% of Michael Stipe’s lyrics, and apparently I’m not alone in that, but I definitely kept a few of these in my brain for the last couple decades without hesitation.
Radio Free Europe, by REM.
Listening to, yes, the Bandsplain podcast about REM, which either weirdly or on brand for both me and them was a really important band in my life for a very short but important period of time, around 16-17 years old.
I heard Orange Crush first, probably and The One I Love, sometime around 1990 at summer camp, and a few years later worked my way through the whole catalog, and at one point had all the CDs through Monster, before, well, the “college rock” scene changed, and they seemed almost comically over-the-top.
Caught myself singing along with this song today after a long stretch at the DMV (don’t ask) and a generally emotional few days.
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Not jangly enough.
Untitled, by REM. (The one from Green.)
Apparently this song is the third REM number of the year! Not at all one I had intentions about, but I just stumbled across it on an REM chords site and thought it fit my mood right now pretty well, and it required actual audio production, though I still used the phone for video, which honestly wasn’t hard.
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Enough reverb and delay for you?
Country Feedback, by REM.
This song has been on my personal karaoke list ever since I read a story about live band karaoke and someone sang this and I just thought wow that sounds cathartic as heck I should belt this sucker out but also I am not Michael Stipe, a well established fact.
Out of Time was everybody’s REM record, even if you hadn’t been that into Green, except for getting told by condescending Georgian proto-alternakids at summer camp that “Orange Crush isn’t about the soda, man” but this one, it was unavoidable on MTV several months in a row, and definitely all that summer, with the B-52s and KRS-One mixed in a weird culture mash, but also it’s a really, really good album, and there a bunch of songs on here (Belong!!! Half a World Away! Me In Honey!!) that hold up wildly well 30 years later. (Typing that last part literally sent a chill up my spine.)
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Gotta have an overly distorted guitar futzing around on the second half, says so right there in the song title. I don’t make the rules, kids.
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.