I remember when my friend Roger brought his copy of "Chronic Town" to school so that I could sneak it home and give it a listen. (That sort of music and album art being frowned upon in our house at the time. And thanks, Roger, for REM, Love and Rockets, Husker Du, The Church, and The Chameleons, among others.) I was not immediately enthralled with "Wolves, Lower," and lifted the needle halfway through the song. But three seconds into "Gardening at Night," I was hooked - bad. There was a time when I considered REM my favorite band. That time was well in the rearview by the time the horror of "Shiny Happy People" came along and Michael Stipe started actually stringing full comprehensible sentences together in interviews. But in those early years, Stipe's mumbled, impressionistic ramblings draped over beautiful jangly guitars and tight American rhythms moved in and out of my days and nights like a weird, seamless, subconscious soundtrack. Those times are slipping into a Gaussian-blurred and faded snapshot of recollection these days, but that doesn't diminish the brilliance and audacity of musical art so simultaneously intricate and simple that it stands unembarrassed among the greatest this nation has ever had to offer to the earth. So, because of that, today I'm a little sad. The harsh reality is, they should have called it quits a few albums ago. And everyone who's honest knows it. But the truth also is, they were once an American treasure.
"Trust in your calling, make sure your calling's true."
R.I.P. R.E.M.
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2 comments:
There have been several times in my life where I have enjoyed a song on the radio and not know who it was only to find out from the DJ that it was REM.
So, Kevin if you had to choose one or the other to listen to for the rest of your life would it be REM or U2?
I know that there are probably dozens of bands you prefer to these two but I ask anyway?
Al, definitely U2, no contest. Musically, lyrically, spiritually they are a first love of mine.
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