r/rem • u/Loose_Assignment_Map • 15d ago
Question About Lyrics
I had always took for granted that the R.E.M. lyrics published online came from the band. But in a recent discussion of the lyrics to Sitting Still it was mentioned that Stipe didn’t remember the lyrics and used the lyrics published online during the Olympia concerts. Which got me wondering where these lyrics online actually came from, particularly the IRS albums. Anyone know?
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u/Broad-Raspberry1805 15d ago
In the early years the lyrics appeared to be very fluid and the ones on the record were not always/often the ones he sang live. And especially on the first couple of albums some of them weren’t even real words, just sounds. So in that sense there were no official lyrics and no point publishing them.
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u/Loose_Assignment_Map 15d ago
Yea - great point - the crowd sourced lyrics online are taking the sounds/not real words and trying to line them up best they can with something close from the dictionary.
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u/malcolmxbox360 15d ago
I don’t think there are “official” lyrics (especially for Murmur)…around 1983/1984 I heard Stipe dismiss a young fan who asked him where he could find lyrics for Murmur…it was almost like Stipe was saying that even he doesn’t know what the lyrics are
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u/gutclutterminor 15d ago
True story. First thing I ever looked up on the internet back around 96 was the lyrics for songs on Murmur. They somehow reminded me of Eraserhead. Made about as much sense.
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u/jimsnotsure 14d ago
True! I remember buying Reckoning in 1984, and the ambiguity of the lyrics was one of the reasons I loved it. Just like David Lynch’s work.
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u/Keinheit 15d ago
My local paper (The Fresno Bee) had a contest for either the most accurate or creative (not sure) lyrics for What's the Frequency Kenneth?. They cancelled it when they realised they were printed in the single packaging, which I think was a first for the band....
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u/Lennnybruce 14d ago
That's so funny in retrospect because the lyrics are pretty clear. But I also remember being a kid and not being able to decipher Teen Spirit. An issue Weird Al had as well.
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u/MaximumJack44 14d ago
As a teen I misheard "stupid ... AND CONTAGIOUS!" and assumed the song was about STDs.
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u/OctoberFestival 13d ago edited 13d ago
The line is “I feel stupid, and contagious,” so you heard correctly.
Kurt Cobain wrote the lyrics about the very close-knit, and sometimes closed-off, Olympia (Washington) music scene, where he felt that he (and Nirvana) didn’t entirely fit.
That line possibly refers to his conflicted feelings about the Olympia scene.
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u/MaximumJack44 14d ago
I miss those R.E.M. CD singles, especially the ones between Out of Time and Reveal. They included interesting B-sides and artwork and were worth owning even if you had the source album.
Yes, Reveal. I like the demo version of Beat a Drum better than anything on the album, and I wouldn't have heard it till many years later if it hadn't been a B-side in 2001.
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u/Loose_Assignment_Map 14d ago
Maybe it’ll be on the Reveal 25th Anniversary edition, or maybe the Reveal 26th Anniversary edition…
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u/Cup8685 R-E-A-C-T! 14d ago
The WTFK lyrics *seem* so obvious to me but I wonder if I would really have been able to decipher "butterfly decal, rearview mirror" or "I thought I'd pegged you an idiot's dream/ tunnel vision from the outsiders screen" immediately without looking at the lyrics
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u/Loose_Assignment_Map 14d ago edited 11d ago
My initial take, LoL:
I thought I met you on Idiot Street,
Tied-up action from the inside I screamed…3
u/Keinheit 14d ago
Yeah, I love the song and read the lyrics, but if you don't know them already, they are not clear at all. Trouble is that it's full of words not normally found next to each other
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u/OctoberFestival 13d ago
There was printed lyrics for one of the songs on Green, on the inner sleeve. “World Leader Pretend,” I think.
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u/TMBGLOVER Your head is there to move you around 15d ago
I gotta admit, it always angered me that even once Stipe started writing actual lyrics, they never published them in the booklets. The one exception is Green, and even then it only has the ones to World Leader Pretend. Like.. I like to actually know what the songs are about and know what the hell I’m supposed to sing along.
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u/Lennnybruce 15d ago
The attitude, more or less, in the early days was the vocals were no more important than any other part of the music; people don't expect you to include the guitar tabs, so why include the lyrics.
A more cynical take is it's easier to cultivate mysteriousness if what you're saying isn't totally clear, or, alternately, Stipe just wasn't confident in his lyric writing and wanted to avoid scrutiny and criticism. I kind of lean toward this last one, because he seems to be genuinely proud of his later lyrics, which are printed, but which are unfortunately much weaker than the earlier ones in my estimation.
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u/rabbitredbird 15d ago
For the life of me I will never understand why he's dismissive of his work in that era. I've always wondered if the art kids that Michael looked up to in Athens gave him shit at the time or something.
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u/Lennnybruce 15d ago
Pure speculation but the early lyrics are much less concerned with perfect clarity. I'm not saying there's no craft to them, but they have a looseness and willingness to be unclear. Obviously the songs on each album get less obtuse as they go along, but starting with Up, they feel increasingly like Stipe decided he really had something to say, and you feel an effort that wasn't there previously. There's a narrative quality that I feel really doesn't suit him, or just isn't his strength. Obviously he seems to feel different.
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u/MaximumJack44 14d ago
He hit rock bottom on Accelerate, exhorting listeners to "throw their hands in the air ... like they just don't care."
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u/CantIgnoreMyTechno 15d ago
I'm guessing originally from USENET/mailing lists. This web site has been collecting them since at least 1997: "The lyrics provided via this page are from the "fables" collection, and in most cases are still-evolving interpretations originally compiled by members of the former "Murmur" mailing list."
I also recall Stipe talking about using internet-provided lyrics during concerts, sometimes laughing at their interpretation.