Wayback Machine: R.E.M.
In an attempt to preserve some of my older writing, at least the stuff I’m still willing to call my writing, I’m going to share it here. It’s not stuff I labored over, or put any thought into, really. They’re just windows into my mind, snapshots in time, unedited, unrevised, unretouched.
The piece below was written on Facebook (with certain individuals tagged) eleven years ago this week, on September 22, 2011, a day after R.E.M., a band I’d listened to since high school, announced its breakup. It’s not as if I took it particularly hard. I had a 2 year-old at the time, was gainfully employed, and had more important things to think about. Also their final few albums hadn’t moved me in the way the first nine or ten did. But the breakup got me thinking about time, and what the band meant to me — in fact, the piece was titled “Another Stupid ‘What R.E.M. Meant to Me’ Thing” — first in high school, and then, later, in the real world.
I first noticed them on a school trip to England, in April 1985. I must have been watching MTV because the video for “So. Central Rain” came on and I was struck by how mournful yet tuneful the song sounded. A month or so later, the record “Fables of the Reconstruction” was released and Rich Greif taped (what we now call burned) the record onto a blank cassette for me. That was the beginning. I listened to that record over and over, through high school into college and beyond. It was, and remains, the perfect rainy day album.
Following “Fables” I had to go back, so I picked up “Reckoning” at the Record Exchange in Salem, MA, and had someone tape “Murmur” for me. When I heard “Perfect Circle,” and that line, “Pull your dress on, and stay real close,” R.E.M. became my new favorite band. The summer following graduation, colleagues and I at work mused over the meaning of the cover of the new album, “Lifes Rich Pageant.” Was that Bill Berry’s face? Were those… buffalo?
In college, there was an R.E.M. poster on the wall of my Freshman dorm room. My roommates didn’t get it. They had their own posters — sports and Bob Marley and marijuana. In a year of great anxiety and worry, that poster reminded me who I was. So did a trip to Burlington, VT on October 31, 1986, where I caught R.E.M. at the Patrick Gymnasium on the campus of UVM. That was the “Pageant” tour. A little-known band from New Jersey, The Feelies, opened. Unfortunately, I don’t remember a lot of this concert.
“It’s the End of the World As We Know It,” from “Document,” became the rallying cry of a weekly blowout party held in an upperclassman dorm my sophomore year. Inevitably the song would come on, and everyone would raise their cups full of keg beer and scream in unison, “Leonard Bernstein!”
I saw them one last time senior year. My friends Shawn, Larry, and I drove from Middlebury to Montreal to see them at the late, great Montreal Forum. A little-known band from Georgia, the Indigo Girls, opened. Michael Stipe came out to join them on a song called “Kid Fears.” By this point the band had signed with a major label, Warner Bros., and we were nervous that they’d sell out, change their sound.
They did change their sound, but they didn’t sell out.
I have very specific memories of “Out of Time”: walking to and from work in the Arena Stage box office, in Washington, DC. The memories associated with “Automatic for the People” are more distinct: the album is linked with a dark time in my life, following the deaths of a family member and a good friend’s father. Both were unnecessary deaths, and I found comfort in songs like “Sweetness Follows,” “Try Not to Breathe,” “Everybody Hurts,” and “Nightswimming.”
The thing about R.E.M. is, no matter what you thought of their records, they always did things their way.
When I moved to New York in 1994, my roommate at the time, Doug French, and I would look forward to each new album with great anticipation. I remember a diner breakfast the morning “Monster” came out. We sat and debated the merits of each album over eggs and coffee. You could do that with R.E.M. — sit and analyze them for hours.
Doug was teaching in Korea when the last Bill Berry album came out, “New Adventures in Hi-Fi.” We lamented the passing of Berry from the band, and in a way, that was the end of an era. Many say they weren’t the same after Berry left. I tend to agree, though some songs still manage to bring me back: “Daysleeper,” “Imitation of Life,” even “UBerlin,” from the last record, to name a few.
In recent years, I bought the records more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. But there was comfort in knowing R.E.M. was still around. I’ll miss that feeling. But as I’ve said, I do think it was time, and I’m glad they’re going out without having embarrassed themselves. They didn’t burn out, or fade away, to paraphrase Mr. Young, but they did have a hell of a run. Thanks for 26 years of great sounds.
