R.E.M. - Perfect Circle

I wrote Horses for kids like Michael Stipe and Morrissey.

(Patti Smith)

There are moments when you realize you've made it. For me, that happened when I found out Michael Stipe was my neighbor.

(Kirsten Dunst)

INTRO

A brief statement, sober and essential. “To our fans and friends: as we’ve told you, we’re breaking up the band” — well, as Rem, as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we've decided to call it a day as a band. That's the news, and there's little else to add, save for a handful of thank-yous. On September 21, 2011, the announcement on the band's official website closed the “perfect circle” of a thirty-one-year-long story. An exit almost on tiptoe, for one of the most important and beloved bands on the planet.

After all, that's exactly what R.E.M. always were: an eternal, fascinating contradiction between stardom and private mystery. Few bands have managed to identify so completely with their fans as these four former Athens, Georgia students did. And yet, deep down, no one ever truly managed to penetrate the secret of their magic. Perhaps because they always knew how to drape a veil of reserve over the masks of stardom, or perhaps because their songs, however immediate and engaging, were in most cases an indecipherable enigma.

Michael Stipe and his bandmates never needed special effects to dazzle. Not even when they were strumming their jingle-jangle in the old deconsecrated church on Oconee Street, in front of relatives and friends. From their road trips in a Dodge van to the big tours in arenas across half the world, they made their mark solely through the elegant simplicity of their songs. Rickenbacker arpeggios and enchanted melodies, melodic basslines and drumming that was incisive but never overbearing. In the end, for a long time this simple alchemy was enough for that “group of nineteen-year-olds who wanted to change the world”, as guitarist Peter Buck romantically put it. Because, indeed, feelings played anything but a secondary role in the story of R.E.M., a formidable circle of affection and genuine friendship even before being a band. Beyond the occasional tensions and flare-ups, their strength lay above all in their unity of purpose, their team spirit. An ironclad pact, able to overcome differences in character and individual ambitions. With some hard-and-fast rules: royalties split evenly between band and manager, no image of the group on album covers or in advertisements, and even a commitment to staying healthy, steering clear of alcohol, drugs and other rock-star excesses. A perfect team, in short. Although a few small “exceptions” did crop up over the years.

In the arc of these Georgians' career, however, there's much more to read. Starting with the way they ferried indie rock onto the great mainstream stage. A high-risk operation, which Stipe and his bandmates pulled off without losing their identity, managing to reconcile million-dollar contracts with the respect of their earliest fans. From the very beginnings of “Murmur“, the four of them were aware of being standard-bearers of a new rock nation, of that nouvelle vague that would renew the American scene of the '80s and '90s down to its foundations. A squadron of alternative and independent bands, working against the grain of the glossy trends of the time, keeping a safe distance from the spotlight of the music business and the screens of MTV. But, unlike their fellow travelers, R.E.M. already possessed all the weapons needed to break through the narrow banks of the underground and reach a mass audience. Although for Peter Buck it was essentially a matter of good fortune.

We felt part of a kind of underground community of musicians. We felt close to the Athens bands of that period, but also to Dream Syndicate, to Black Flag, to Hüsker Dü: it's true we made different music from them, but we hung out in the same places and had a lot in common. None of them had the success we had, but I think that's just a matter of luck.

An unstoppable progression. Just like that Rapid Eye Movement, harbinger of dreams, that gave the band its perfect acronym. From the golden age of college radio, which amplified their underground legend, to the “graduation diploma” of “Document”, which would ferry them into the multimillion-dollar harbor of the majors as early as the following “Green”, all the way to the era of bestsellers (“Out Of Time” and “Automatic For The People“) and a surprisingly vital maturity, culminating in the epic and supremely courageous “New Adventures In Hi-Fi”. A run that seemed to have reached its terminus with the departure of drummer Bill Berry, but which instead carried on “three-legged”, through ups and downs, all the way to the final stop of “Collapse Into Now“.

But through the long journey of Stipe and his bandmates, one can also retrace three crucial decades of American history. Their songs first mirrored the restless youth of the post-punk era, grappling with the yuppie ambition of the Reagan epoch and the last ghosts of the Cold War; then the "Generation X" of the Nineties, suspended between the mirage of prosperity of the Clinton years and the military-business drift of the Bush administrations, the indignant "no global" community, and finally the wounded, bewildered nation of the post-9/11 era.

Culturally distant both from the protest spirit and ideology of the '70s and from the destructive nihilism of punk and the iconoclastic fury that later resurfaced in grunge, R.E.M. expressed their civic engagement with a strongly constructive spirit, nurturing the hope of another America. Environmental battles, often alongside Greenpeace, struggles for civil rights and a more transparent economy, invectives against imperialism, but also against the hatred and ignorance that too often turned America into an Ignoreland, were the tools to "come together and build a new country," as they theorized in "Cuyahoga," immersing themselves in the blood-red waters of the Indian river. "We are young despite the years, we are concern/We are hope despite the times": in the end, it had all already been written here, in those two lines from "These Days," in which Stipe and his bandmates proclaimed their challenge to the world. A calling that found its natural outlet in the evolution of communication and the advent of the internet, which R.E.M. knew how to exploit with foresight and clarity.

Their "new America," however, has not lost its memory, the recollection of the deep roots and values on which it was founded. The Georgians, in fact, stood as fierce guardians of tradition. Dusting off those rural, provincial stories of frontier and railroad that have filled the pages of Southern literature. Maps and legends, fairy tales and campfire tales, the kind passed down from generation to generation. As if jealously wanting to preserve a heritage at risk of being lost amid the bulimic frenzy of contemporary culture.

Beyond the social and political implications, however, their songbook is above all a mirror of Michael Stipe's multifaceted personality. A collage of free associations, dreamlike flashes, religious symbolism, autobiographical memories and wordplay, often built in cut-up form, sometimes riding on pure linguistic suggestion alone.

It's not that I want the lyrics I write to be obscure, but I believe we need to get past the idea that everyday language always faithfully represents reality: it's just a necessary code for expressing what's real.

So spoke the young Stipe of the early days. While the mature Stipe would later burst out: "I'm tired of being this solemn poet of the masses, the enigma wrapped in mystery."

But the plainer, more narrative language of their later records would not rule out new, indecipherable puzzles, suspended between the unconscious and reality.

The long journey through their songs (of which, inevitably, for reasons of space, we had to make a small selection) is thus dotted with puzzles, red herrings and false clues. In these pages we have tried to get as close as possible to a solution, thanks also to the testimonies of the band members themselves and the invaluable archival and exegetical work carried out by the fan community. But Michael Stipe's lyrics don't need authoritative interpretations; if anything, through them one can piece together the mosaic of an elusive, fascinating personality, far removed from the traditional clichés of the rockstar. Just as through the band's entire artistic journey, one can reconstruct roles and internal dynamics. Discovering that, in the end, each of the four was indispensable.

"Perfect Circle" is the reconstruction of the fable. An imaginary cartography of sounds and words that crosses three decades of history and inevitably leads us to that fateful September 21, 2011. With the hope that the hit-making machine from Athens will one day fire up its engines again. If only to relive, on stage, the emotion of this great American novel.

(September 2012)

CHRONIC TOWN (EP, 1982)

WOLVES, LOWER

A bowl of cherries and Horses by Patti Smith. The alchemy that struck the fresh-faced John Michael Stipe onto the path of rock took shape on a sleepless night. At 15, even a pair of crackling headphones swiped from his parents was enough for "the first plunge into the Ocean," as he would later call it. "It was like being hit by a wave. It tore me apart. From then on I knew I wanted to become a singer." Like a mystical initiation. The hallucinated fervor of the priestess of CBGB's hurled the fifteen-year-old Michael into another dimension. Where the rules of proper singing no longer applied, nor the codified clichés of the lung-shredding rocker. Everything was in the feeling, in the magnetism of that raw, unprecedented voice, which left no escape. "I thought: if she can sing, so can I."

It is the year 1975. The first cries of punk are like a fire smoldering under the skin. It breaks out in New York, but quickly spreads across the States. Reaching all the way to remote Athens, Georgia. Deep America, land of traditions and contradictions. Like that of being, at once, a bastion of the rural South and a hotbed of the youthful ferment of those years. Not by chance, though, considering that of its sixty thousand inhabitants nearly a third are students. Because the University of Georgia is the beating heart of the "Classic City," so nicknamed for its classical, nineteenth-century buildings resting along the old Oconee River. "Georgia looks like a cultural desert: you drive through it and all you see is a row of McDonald's and shopping malls. But if you look two blocks back, you'll find the true nature of things," Stipe would prophesy.

But no one could have predicted that in these humid, lush lands, among orange groves and prairies, the most fertile seeds of rock could sprout. And yet here the eccentric B-52's had already blossomed, with their exhilarating cartoon-trash parties. And now, despite his shyness and big nerdy glasses, young Michael wanted to give it a try too, alongside his three companions in adventure. Namely Peter Buck, self-taught guitarist, as well as sporadic student and record-store guru to Athenians in search of new punk stimuli. Practically a walking almanac of records and rock trivia, with a home collection of tens of thousands of vinyl records. And then two other college students - Mike Mills (bass) and Bill Berry (drums) - for years an established rhythm section in various college bands.

"At Georgia University, all you want to do is avoid having to work for four years, so you get drunk and raise hell. I didn't study, I didn't even go to class. I was lazy...", Buck recalls. But it's music that shakes up that sleepy Southern town. The four students waste no time: before long they become the star attraction at the parties that fill the old abandoned church on Oconee Street, in the heart of Athens, right up to the bell tower. But local glory isn't enough. So they crisscross America in a green '75 Dodge pickup truck, chasing their fortune. They play in clubs, performing garage-rock covers and original songs with the fervor of the early Who and that distinctive jingle-jangle sound that, in rock history, always rhymes with Byrds.

The first embryonic version of the band takes shape in April 1980, under the name Twisted Kites, for a specific occasion: the birthday party of their friend Kathleen O'Brien. The following summer comes the switch to the magic three-letter name that will change everything: Rem, short for "rapid eye movement", the rapid movement the eye makes during the sleep phase in which dreams are formed. A concise, intriguing name, just as a rock acronym should be.

But while dreams move fast, paying your dues takes time and sacrifice. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the fledgling R.E.M. play a singles bar packed with thugs and prostitutes, filling in for a strip show: a brawl breaks out. They also perform at the Wichita Falls military air base in Texas, but the marines' welcome is no gentler: "Oranges were flying onto the stage," Buck recalls, "and they'd pass you notes reading things like: 'If you play one more song like that, we'll beat the hell out of you, you fucking faggots!'". But R.E.M. aren't easily intimidated, and they string together a run of live shows across North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, with a shrewd manager, Jefferson Holt, following them every step of the way. Until the breakthrough on college radio with their debut single, "Radio Free Europe", released by the local indie label Hib-Tone. The grace of that country-folk blend, embellished by Buck's distinctive arpeggios and Stipe's magnetic vocals, forges a sound unlike anything else in the post-punk landscape of the early Eighties. The first to notice is the New York weekly Village Voice, which places "Radio Free Europe" at the top of its year-end Best Independent Singles list.

It's just the jolt they needed. Both Hib-Tone itself and I.R.S. Records compete for the EP containing the band's early songs, but lurking in the wings is even a major label, RCA. Stipe and his bandmates, however, aren't ready (yet) to give up their indie roots, and they sign with I.R.S. in May 1982. "Chronic Town" comes out that August, championed in the pages of NME for the vibrancy of its sound and the aura of mystery surrounding the songs.

And indeed the opening track, "Wolves, Lower", is just one of the many indecipherable riddles that will punctuate Stipe's path. Starting with that oddly placed comma wedged between the two words, which strongly evokes "Paint It, Black" (and some swear the only real reason for its presence is that illustrious precedent).

Suspicion yourself, suspicion yourself, don't get caught

Suspicion yourself, suspicion yourself, let us out

Wilder lower wolves. Here’s a house to put wolves out the door

In a corner garden, wilder lower wolves

House in order. House in order. House in order. House in order

Down there they're rounding a posse to ride

An insistent arpeggio introduces a sinister nursery rhyme, with that disorienting counter-melody that lodges itself in your brain ("House in order ah ah ah ah!"). A tale of traps to dodge, of wolves at the door. Like the one from the famous fable of the Three Little Pigs, which Stipe draws on to develop a more complex reflection on wariness as the only resource for protecting one's own psyche. Some – like his former teacher and occasional videomaker James Herbert – will detect in the song traces of Stipe's passion for southern gothic literature, with all its trappings of dark primitivism. Chanted over disjointed, lopsided cadences, with those signature closed-mouth choruses that would become a trademark, "Wolves, Lower" is already a rough-hewn gem of R.E.M.-ian art. Pure, a little naive, decidedly irresistible.

GARDENING AT NIGHT

After mystery, nonsense. The second track on "Chronic Town" is already a manifesto of the R.E.M. sound. So much so that the four of them would go on to name their music publishing company "Night Gardening." Written by Stipe in 1980, while he lay on a mattress in front of the church on Oconee Street, "Gardening At Night" is also the most engaging song on the EP, with that folk-driven feel led by the acoustic guitar wrestling with the electric Rickenbacker, and one of those melancholy melodies that would become a defining trait of the Georgians. Another odd, whimsical story, inspired by an episode Buck told Stipe about: wandering around at two in the morning looking for a beer, the guitarist had come across an elderly gentleman who, dressed in jacket and tie, was mowing his lawn. Stipe turns it into a new abstract sketch, "a metaphor for the absurdity of living" – as Buck describes it – which nonetheless quickly derails from any logic, proceeding through free association and wordplay.

I see your money on the floor, I felt the pocket change

Though all the feelings that broke through that door

Just didn’t seem to be too real

The yard is nothing but a fence, the sun just hurts my eyes

Somewhere it must be time for penitence. Gardening at night is never where

From the night garden the focus shifts rapidly elsewhere: there's even a prayer hotline (the first of many religious references to come). Phantom neighbors abuse it every night...

The neighbors go to bed at ten

Call the prayer line for a change

The charge is changing every month

They said it couldn’t be arranged

The neighbors go to bed at 10

And from here the song takes on an even more uncontrollable trajectory. A sister, another phone call, and the repetition of the same line ("They said it couldn't be arranged"), most likely for purely phonetic reasons.

Your sister said that you’re too young

They should know they’ve been there twice

The call was 2 and 51

They said it couldn’t be arranged

 “It’s a kind of confused song”, commenterà Buck. Difficile dargli torto…

CARNIVAL OF SORTS (BOX CARS)

The EP's real triumph, though, is a haunting lullaby of the kind that leaves you floored. It's called "Carnival Of Sorts", and it already reveals that magical fusion of American tradition and new wave that would go on to define the Georgians' final formula. Because while the dense arpeggios and that irresistible melodic progression chanted by Stipe are rooted in the folk-rock of the Byrds, the jittery interlocking of the riffs can't help but evoke masters like Wire, Gang Of Four and Feelies, artists to whom R.E.M. would repeatedly show their devotion.

Introduced by a chiming organ (produced with a Casio Mt30 keyboard), the story once again unfolds through free-associated words, with the obsessive repetition of certain terms and a nod to the album's title (chronic town). Is the chronic town perhaps the alienating, claustrophobic one that swallows us whole every day? The doubt seems legitimate, and it would add yet another link to that new wave imagery that Stipe and company seem eager to wink at. Always in their own way, though...

There's a secret stigma, reaping wheel

Diminish, a carnival of sorts

Chronic town, poster torn, reaping wheel

Stranger, stranger to these parts

Gentlemen don't get caught, cages under cage

Gentlemen don't get caught

Boxcars (are pulling) out of town. Boxcars (are pulling) out of town

Indecipherable lyrics, following one another with slight variations on the same theme. So the verb “diminish” (to belittle, to shrink) is first paired with “this kind of carnival” (“Carnival Of Sorts”), and then linked to the already-mentioned “stranger foreign to these places.” The whole song is built through an a-logical, distinctly cinematic editing style. A collage of abstract images set on loop, symbolizing extreme, surreal situations and events that can't be rendered in more conventional forms. Much like the famous black-and-white sequence of the Bolivia trip in the film “Butch Cassidy.” The main source, from which Stipe also draws the title, is however another black-and-white film, the horror b-movie “Carnival Of Souls” (1962), with its long dreamlike sequence set in a huge abandoned pavilion once used as an amusement park. From here, probably, come the “torn posters” and the “cages,” suggesting a kind of traveling circus. Marcus Gray, author of a fine book on R.E.M. (“It Crawled from the South”), also suggests that the bracketed subtitle, “Box Cars,” and the chorus “pulling out of town” refer to a train, and that the refrain “Gentlemen don’t get caught” nods to “Emperor of the North” with Lee Marvin. The wheel of the combine harvester, finally, sounds like an allusion to the oppressive dimension of rural routine. Chronic, that too.

The images follow one another frenetically, one fragment after another, generating a disorientation that blends well with the suspense of the music.

“Carnival Of Sorts” will be the only track from Chronic Town to make it onto the 1991 compilation “The Best Of R.E.M.,” while the entire EP will be reissued on CD in 1987 as part of the B-sides collection “Dead Letter Office.”

Given the conditions under which it was born, “Chronic Town” will exceed every expectation: three months in the Top 5 of college radio stations and 20,000 copies sold by the end of the year.

MURMUR (1983)

RADIO FREE EUROPE

By the time “Chronic Town” came out, though, Stipe and company were no longer just enterprising outsiders from small-town America. What had given them momentum was one of those incredible phenomena for which America can rightfully be considered the mecca of independent rock. A single, recorded in a seven-square-metre garage (Mitch Easter's “Drive In Studio”) and pressed in a run of a thousand copies by a tiny indie label, Hib-Tone, had quickly become an underground cult through the college radio circuit.

It has a title that works, “Radio Free Europe,” and it's the first song R.E.M. ever released. It's from this bombshell of a 45 that their full-length debut takes shape. Because for Stipe and co., the time is ripe for the big breakthrough. And never mind if the old Dodge van abandoned them at the worst possible moment. That beloved wreck was no longer needed anyway, because far greater journeys awaited them. Journeys that would lead straight into rock's pantheon. Or pop's? Because that's the question critics were asking, disoriented by a historical moment in which America was undergoing a new British Invasion daubed in blush and mascara: that of neo-romantic synth-pop, of electronic dandies descended from Duke Bowie and the symbiotic Kraftwerk. A mass of decadent poseurs that horrified your average American FM rock fan, yet still bore the avant-garde stigmata of post-punk.

R.E.M. are traditionalists. But – like the Smiths on the other side of the Ocean – they let themselves be won over by the essential lesson of punk, filtering it through a distinctly pop melodic sensibility. It's not the only parallel: both bands, in fact, settle into a “classic” four-piece line-up, favour a certain “dark” humour, and take aim at the flabby machismo of “tank-top and studs” rock, retreating instead into that secluded, individual dimension that would go on to fuel so much “bedroom indie rock” to come. And, at bottom, many of the wellsprings they draw from are shared: guitar pop, the classic beat era of Beatles, Kinks, Who, but above all – in the case of these Georgians – the Byrds.

And so we arrive at “Murmur”: an evocative title with Faulknerian overtones, a reference to a famous poem by Thomas S. Eliot, according to whom it would be a whimper that accompanies the end of the world, or – as Stipe more prosaically explains it – “one of the six easiest words to pronounce in the English language”? Hard to say for certain, but what's beyond doubt is the unsettling cover art, with its dense thicket of kudzu (a climbing vine native to Japan and ubiquitous in Georgia) rendered in murky tones, and a trestle, the traditional wooden railway bridge, on the back. The latter would become something of a fetish object for R.E.M. fans, helping to cement the band's image as champions of Southern rock.

Elegant and melancholy, steeped in a retro charm yet with its gaze fixed on the future, “Murmur” thrives on arcane noises and riffs that are obscure yet catchy. “We wanted to make a spectral, floating album, of unknown origin,” says Buck. Stipe's nasal, baritone voice – often joined by Mills on backing vocals – and his dark, sardonic neo-beat poetics fuel the sense of a dreamy, elusive mood. “Murmur,” writes Steve Pond in Rolling Stone, “is a restless, nervous record, full of false starts and images of movement, of pilgrimage, of transit.”

The joint production by Easter and Don Dixon brings out the full potential of this dirty dozen of timeless ballads, practically perfect in the way every ingredient is measured out. Peter Buck's arpeggiated guitars, Mike Mills's pulsing, melodic basslines, Bill Berry's strong rhythmic counterpoint and country-inflected percussion, and Stipe's woozy vocal murmurings forge a blend of American roots rock, psychedelia, power pop and (post-)punk. Tradition regenerates into something new and unheard-of, rural melancholy and urban desolation fuse together in songs that are as simple and direct on the surface as they are meticulously polished underneath. The ambition, in short, is all there: “We wanted to make a powerful record, with no filler. Like the Stones' Aftermath,” Buck would say.

It's precisely with this LP – probably far more innocuous today than it might have seemed at the time – that the concept of “alternative music” would find a formidable vehicle for its spread across the United States, soon going on to influence mainstream production as well. Rolling Stone would crown it album of the year for 1983, at the same time anointing R.E.M. as the best alternative band and the third-best band overall, behind only U2 and Police. Not bad, for a debut.

Introduced by a futuristic rumble that is nothing more than the studio's background hum, amplified and harmonized with Mills's bass, “Radio Free Europe” opens the album and immediately maps out the coordinates of a sound that would remain unmistakable throughout the decade: chiming guitars, a bass with wave-inflected leanings, graceful melodic lines, and Stipe's gorgeous voice sketching out a mysterious story, made all the more intriguing by the spectral echo of the chorus, which lends it a pronounced hymn-like quality.

Beside yourself if radio's gonna stay

Reason: it could polish up the grey

Put that, put that, put that up your wall

That this isn’t country at all

Radio Free Europe was the station from which Americans broadcast their propaganda to countries behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. The adjective “raving” therefore seems to refer to the propagandistic fervor of those broadcasts, while the grayness evokes a generic Communist country, and the wall could well be the Berlin Wall itself. That is, assuming appearances aren't deceiving. Because Stipe himself, introducing the song during a 1999 tour, would say: “I can't believe people on the internet try to interpret the different words and syllables. Some things make sense, some don't. This one doesn't.” A further clue would instead come from Peter Buck, in 1984, explaining that the lyrics “conjure the image of people listening to rock'n'roll and having no idea what it represents,” referring to the reality of many Eastern European nations at the time.

The fact remains that the lyrics, once again, become almost inextricably tangled (quite literally, too: Stipe's mumbled diction has even given rise to several different versions of the final text). The allusions to media warfare return, but so do references to “buildings crumbling,” as if in a revolution.

Beside defying media too fast

Instead of pushing palaces to fall

Put that, put that, put that before all

That this isn’t fortunate at all

Rather than challenging the media too hastily

Even the back cover of the 45, where none of the band members look at the camera, would go on to exert an enormous influence on the visual imagination of indie bands. And yet that golden nugget of a single had irritated perfectionist Buck: disgusted by a mix he found a little too "muffled", he reportedly went so far as to smash one of the first copies.

PILGRIMAGE

The echo of a distant voice, a menacing bassline, the guitar's overbearing entrance, and a tale of pilgrimages unfolding in melancholy fashion amid the choruses and the drums' dry hits. Religious references have always been frequent in R.E.M.'s songbook, well before the famous "Losing My Religion" (which, incidentally, means something quite different from what is commonly assumed). So, after the prayer hotline of "Gardening At Night", here comes another mystically-tinged puzzle, evoking mysterious symbols and images straight out of the biblical Babel ("Speakin' in tongues"). But behind this mask, Pilgrimage conceals yet another exercise in pure nonsense, so much so that Stipe himself has admitted he isn't quite sure what the song is really about. What is certain is that the opening once again contains a direct exhortation, a device that Stipe and co. would often resort to in order to introduce their free speech.

Take a turn, take a turn

Take our fortune, take our fortune

They called the clip a two-headed cow

Your hate clipped and distant, your luck, pilgrimage

Rest assured this will not last, take a turn for the worst

Your hate clipped and distant, your luck a two-headed cow

The pilgrimage has gained momentum

The imagery grows ever more cryptic and indecipherable. Take the "two-headed cow" that rises to the status of "good luck charm" (a symbol from Chinese tradition?), though omens of bad luck are not lacking either ("take a turn for the worst"). The lyric repeats itself obsessively, with the sole addition of a verse no less indecipherable: "Speakin' in tongues, it's worth a broken lip". As for this last line, the Random House College Dictionary explains that it refers to a prayer marked by incomprehensible language, originating in early Christianity and now practiced by Pentecostals in an ecstatic form of worship - a phenomenon often described as "the gift of tongues". Religion, then, in the young Stipe's vocabulary, feeds on arcane and superstitious symbolism, most likely a legacy of Southern American fanaticism and of the symbolism steeped in Southern Gothic literature by authors such as Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. A literary genre that borrows traditional Gothic elements - bizarre, dark and/or occult tales - while also delving deep into the sociocultural substratum, folklore and atmosphere of the American South.

"Pilgrimage still leaves me bewildered," he would admit. "At one point, right after recording it, I listened back and everything seemed to make perfect sense. I was so excited... I thought I'd achieved exactly what I wanted. Then I forgot about it." But the song's strength lies less in its surreal lyrics than in its enveloping sound, built entirely on vocal echoes in counterpoint, with thousands of voices recorded and layered by the band to make the track resemble a kind of Gregorian chant, and on the dynamic cadences of the bass, which dictates constant tempo shifts, eventually spilling into a sort of bizarre little march.

LAUGHING

Yet another arcane, ancient symbol. After the biblical imagery of "Pilgrimage", here comes the classical mythology of "Laughing", embodied by the figure of Laocoon, priest of Troy, atrociously punished by the Greek gods with two monstrous sea serpents that would wrap him, along with his young sons, in their deadly coils. Stipe, however, changes the character's sex, turning him into a woman and using it as the initial spark for another of his rambling vignettes.

Laocoon and her two sons

Pressured storm, tried to move

No other more, emotion bound

Martyred, misconstrued

Lighted in a room, lanky room

Lighted, lighted, laughing in tune

Lighted, lighted, laughing

Laocoon and his two sons

The first verse appears unusually clear: Laocoön and his two sons are captured by sea serpents sent by the Gods, who want to punish him for having warned the Trojans, suggesting they not accept gifts (including the famous horse) from the Greeks. His martyrdom is also the extreme consequence of a prejudicial refusal, and some have seen in this a possible explanation for the sex change carried out by Stipe: Laocoön is feminized to underline how women's words went unheard for centuries. But it's only a hypothesis, however suggestive. Stipe's own words, on the other hand, confirm a reference to the Holocaust: "The image of Laocoön with his two sons," he recounted, "reminds me of photos of Jewish women in Nazi Germany. I'm referring to that snapshot of the woman with the shaved head who, clutching her child, flees from people mocking her." The following verse, however, remains completely unexplained, in which the protagonists are portrayed in a narrow room lit up like daylight, while "laughing in unison." Is the light perhaps that of the lightning from the storm evoked earlier? Even so, it would still be hard to understand the reason for such hilarity.

Laocoon and her two sons

Ran the gamut, settled new

Find a place fit to laugh

Lock the doors, latch the room

Lighted in a room, lanky room

Lighted, lighted, laughing in tune

Laocoon and his two sons

Stipe further complicated matters, calling the song "a retelling of The Scarlet Letter." But the impression is that once again he hasn't built a story, merely casting the hook of his cultural references to lure listeners into a web of associations and images detached from any bond with reality. Another dream, then, vaguely unsettling, driven by the dark rumble of the bass and the dry snaps of the drums. A wall against which the dense acoustic guitar interplay shatters ("like My Sweet Lord," according to Easter's description) and Stipe's slurred vocals, whose diction would once again horrify his old teachers (just listen to the way he pronounces "laughing" to believe it).

TALK ABOUT THE PASSION

A love song? Not quite. The passion of the title, in fact, is meant in its Christian sense. Suffering and extreme sacrifice, then. Like that of Jesus, who died for the salvation of humanity, but also like that lived daily by the destitute and the homeless on the edges of the streets: they, in fact, will be the protagonists of the song's namesake video, shot by Jem Cohen in an austerely poetic black and white. There is no pity, however, in Stipe's words, but rather an indictment of those "empty prayers" that fill men's "empty mouths." Sterile ramblings that do nothing to improve the condition of those who can no longer bear the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Empty prayer, empty mouths, combien reaction

Empty prayer, empty mouths, talk about the passion

Not everyone can carry the weight of the world

Not everyone can carry the weight of the world

Talk about the passion

Talk about the passion

"Not everyone can carry the weight of the world," though, also sounds like a kind of self-justification: the four Georgians don't want to be political activists (even though many will identify them as such in the future); they want to change the world, but not through songs: "It's enough for me that people know R.E.M. are thoughtful people who have compassion for others, human beings who support many causes, both publicly and privately. I don't need to climb on top of a building and start shouting. I'm not much of a public speaker, you know; I'm no Billy Bragg or Peter Garrett," Stipe would later explain.

The singer's impassioned performance contributes decisively to the song's magic, which also features a cello part entrusted to "a lady who plays in a symphony orchestra, whom we paid 25 dollars," according to Buck's account.

“Talk About The Passion” is basically the archetype of the “R.E.M. ballad” for all eternity: the aching guitars, the timeless charm of jingle-jangle, the Velvet-esque rhythmic-melodic weave, Stipe's slurred yet remarkably "musical" singing, the drum breaks, the offbeat pulse. Simple and perfect in its elegant essentiality.

PERFECT CIRCLE

Another ballad, intense and melancholic. Subdued, minimal harmonies, cradled by the tolling of the keyboard. And a delicate filigree of guitar, played almost like a mandolin, amid the disjointed percussion hits. A story of friendship, in all likelihood, where the "perfect circle" is precisely that of boys bound by a strong sense of belonging. And this does seem to be Buck's own interpretation: "We were at the City Garden, a club in New Jersey, and there were some kids playing football outside the venue. They weren't much younger than us, and they were having fun while we were getting ready to play three sets. That image, with the sun setting over those kids and their figures running through the twilight, moved me deeply for a long time." It's a shame, though, that the meaning Stipe attributes to the song has nothing to do with those poignant memories: "Peter always tells people that 'Perfect Circle' was inspired by some kids playing. Actually, it's about an ex-girlfriend of mine. A lot of times Peter, Mike and Bill don't read the lyrics until we've recorded the track; and quite often they don't even want to read them."

The tone, once again, is one of evocation. Almost like a film, in which grainy images of memories flash by quickly, flashbacks hanging on the thread of nostalgia. What carries the song, then, is once more the pathos, the feeling, sublimated by Stipe's soft vocalizing and by that circular keyboard phrasing that musically echoes the title, mimicking a kind of hypnotic trance.

Put your hair back, we get to leave

Eleven gallows on your sleeve

Shallow figure, winner's paid

Eleven shadows way out of place

Standing too soon, shoulders high in the room

Pull your dress on and stay real close

Who might leave you where I left off?

A perfect circle of acquaintances and friends

Drink another, coin a phrase

Heaven assumed, shoulders high in the room

Tirati indietro i capelli, dobbiamo partire

Characters moving suspended in time, exactly as in a dream, where true memories blur into imagination. If the lyrics bear the stamp of Stipe's style, the music, composed on keyboard, is largely the work of Berry, a precious and too often underrated element of the band. A perfect blend that takes shape thanks to an eccentric trick as well: a guitar track played backwards and two pianos, one of them out of tune, playing the same part.

CATAPULT

That sense of nostalgia left behind by “perfect circle” now resurfaces even more powerfully in “Catapult”. And what sets it off can only be the evocation of childhood, with its symbols and its free, innocent language, unbound by any rational constraint. Just like that of Michael Stipe.

Ooooo, we were little boys

Ooooo, we were little girls

It’s nine o’clock, don’t try to turn it off

Cowered in a hole, Opie mouth. Question:

Did we miss anything? Did we miss anything?

Did we miss anything? Did we miss anything?

Almost a nursery rhyme, then. An ode to the freedom of childhood, now lost forever (“did we miss anything?”), packed with new wordplay like “cowered”, halfway between “covered” and “coward”, as well as mysterious characters like Opie, who is, in all likelihood, one of the protagonists of the Sixties TV series “Andy Griffith Show”, played by Ron Howard, future Richie Cunningham of “Happy Days” and later a successful film director. “It's nine o'clock, don't try to turn it off” (the TV) sounds like the aggressive version of the classic kids' complaint when they don't want to go to bed. And the catapult of the title could easily be a toy weapon from some playful childhood afternoons.

Rocking the memories at will, an insistent country-rock arpeggio serves as the leitmotif of the whole track, after a prologue marked by powerful drumming. Not a masterpiece, but a song with real impact, already tested successfully on stage before being recorded in the studio.

SITTING STILL

Faced with lyrics that the author himself described as “an embarrassing jumble of vowels put together 400 years ago, mostly meaningless”, all we can do is wave the white flag. Especially since the final version of “Sitting Still” found in Kipp Teague's archives doesn't match the one “authenticated” by Stipe himself during a chat conversation. After all, it's not the first time an R.E.M. song has had multiple transcriptions, due to the singer's slurred diction, which often leaves the end of lines unpronounced, making a definitive solution to these puzzles impossible.

I’m the sign and you can read

I’m the sign and you’re not deaf

We could bind it in the scythe

We could gather, throw a fit

Up to par, Katie bar the kitchen door but not me in

Setting trap for the love making a waste of time, sitting still

I-I-I can hear. I-I-I can hear. I-I-I can hear

The only clue – suggested even in the fans' fateful FAQs – is a possible reference to the work of Stipe's sister, Cyndy, a teacher for deaf children ("I'm the sign and you're not deaf" could allude to sign language, which overcomes deafness), while the phrase "bar the door" is a Southern idiom warning of impending danger, roughly translatable as "watch out". But these interpretations, this one included, should be taken with a large pinch of salt. All the other verses remain wrapped in a haze of nonsense. What's left, in any case, is another thoroughbred pop song, with jangling guitars, joyous harmonies and a catchy Beach Boys-style chorus. Not a new track, though, since it had already appeared on the B-side of the "Radio Free Europe" 45.

SHAKING THROUGH

Childhood again, the cornerstone of Michael Stipe's dreamlike universe. Another dive into memory, coupled with the awareness of time gone by and lost forever. The usual thread of nostalgia beading another crystalline melody, whispered in a fatalistic tone over a delicate interplay of guitars and piano.

Are we gone way too far?

Taking after rain

Yellow like a geisha gown, denial all the way

Shaking through, opportune. Shaking through, opportune

In my life

Realizing you've grown up too fast ("gone way too far"): is this the fear shaking inside, the one that makes you tremble? It's a sensible interpretation, but the threat likely comes specifically from a premature sexual experience, perhaps abuse. A hypothesis that seems supported by the opening line, which tells of a "little voice" left unheard, but above all by the far more explicit phrase "incest on parade", present in the original demo and later replaced with "children of today on parade". What remains unexplained, however, is the mysterious presence of an Eastern geisha, complete with a long yellow robe.

WE WALK

A delightful nursery rhyme to hum along to with your head in the clouds. It arrives like a bolt from the blue, eccentric and disorienting. Thanks in part to one of the strangest sounds on the whole album: that of billiard balls colliding, electronically altered and slowed down to half their actual speed. A kind of found sound obtained by recording Berry's games in a billiard room located beneath the vocal recording booth. The music-box effect is amplified by Stipe's sing-song tone and a catchy, repeated guitar riff. But the dreamy, childlike mood of the music conceals lyrics dense with mystery, hinting at unsettling new images.

Up the stairs to the landing, up the stairs into the hall

Oh, oh, oh

Take oasis, Marat's bathing

We walk through the wood, we walk

The bathing of Jean-Paul Marat has gone down in the history of the French Revolution: it was in his bathtub, in fact, that the Jacobin leader was stabbed to death by the Girondin Charlotte Corday. An image handed down to posterity by Jacques-Louis David's famous painting. It's a flash inserted within verses that point elsewhere entirely, as is often the case with Stipe's cultural references, tossed in suddenly, like bait to lure the listener into his mysterious universe.

The opening line ("Up the stairs to the landing, up the stairs into the hall") is instead, according to its author, a transcription of a little tune his neighbor used to hum while climbing the stairs.

There's still no trace, on "Murmur", of the activist fervor that would mark many later works. And yet this mysterious microcosm, ideally hidden by the kudzu thicket on the cover, already seems like a strong counterpoint to the glittering America of the Reagan era. It's an America that lives in the shadows, that of R.E.M., or perhaps on the Moon. "We wanted people listening to us to think: 'Jesus, what planet did these guys come down from?'" Buck would recall. That's the first way to mark difference. No need for pointed fingers or political slogans to shout.

Musically, on the other hand, with its blend of limpid lyrical impressionism and exuberant folk-rock passion, "Murmur" sets a new standard for American guitar rock. If the words of its 12 tracks are always cryptic and indecipherable, functioning more as "sounds" than as threads of possible stories, the overall mood isn't far from that restless, understated feeling that would pervade the catalogs of so many indie bands to come. One of those records, in short, that everyone, like it or not, will have to reckon with.

(to be continued…)

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30/04/2026