3 My Top 5 R.E.M. Songs
#1. (Don’t Go Back to) Rockville
In Maine we have Rockport and Rockland, a very rocky coastline, but not a Rockville. It always seemed like a southern thing to have a whatever-ville. Mike Mills, the writer was trying to convince his girlfriend to stay and to not return to her hometown in Maryland. “Don’t go back to Rockville and waste another year” always made me think of my girlfriend in Farmington, Maine. Pretty far north. This 1984 song was musically indicative of REM’s early work. “I believe you’ll be coming back before too long.”
I got on a bus in New York City at 3 in the morning and arrived in Farmington at noon to find out I was single. I was devastated at the time, had to beg a ride back to my parents’ house and surprise them with being home for no reason.
#2. Stand
This song drove everyone nuts when it came over the speakers at high school dances. Everyone ran to the dance floor to hop around to this ridiculous tune. Set in a ‘60s bubble gum pop theme we loved letting the tones wash over us. It’s only now, paying more attention to the lyrics and finding out why Michael Stipe wrote it, that it hits hard. “Don’t think about direction, wonder why you haven’t before.” A song about being directionless. “Stand in the place where you are.”
I’ve recently had to accept things as being what they are. What is. A lesson I could have learned sooner from REM. “Stand in the place where you live, now face North.” No reason given, just stand and look. There’s a certain amount of freedom to it frankly.
#3. Driver 8
An earlier song from REM, similar in style to Rockville, this song seemed to keep telling me to calm down as I traveled from Philadelphia to Maine, or New York to Maine, on buses often, but occasionally on trains. “And the train conductor says, take a break driver 8” and it repeats over and over. It’s written about a train that ended its run in 1979 but ran throughout the South where the band members are from. “We can reach our destination, but it’s still a ways away, it’s still a ways away …” Repeated. Like, chill out man. We’ll get there. Just rest now, the train will get where it’s going.
#4. What’s the Frequency Kenneth
The most recent of the tracks from REM that I can’t live without. This came out when I was in college and blasted everyone in the face. After a decade of mostly folksy alt-country music, this ROCK song hit everyone pretty hard. And it made no sense, but it was supposed to. The title refers to a moment in the life of famous newscaster Dan Rather, when he was attacked by two men in New York City who kept chanting, “What is the frequency Kenneth?” The lead singer says this song is trying to make some sense of Generation X. What the heck do they want? What’s their deal? In the end, the narrator can’t really make sense of kids these days. “I’ve never understood the frequency uh huh.” My tie to this tune is simply that it rocks and makes no sense, even to those who wrote it.
#5. Everybody Hurts
By far the most straightforward song lyrically. Written for college students, their biggest audience at the time. I was one of them. Didn’t start hearing it until I was on an exchange for a year in Germany. Missed home so much. Once I cried in the shower because I couldn’t read the label on the shampoo, or was it conditioner?
Nowadays I change the title to “Everything Hurts” when I exercise too intensely. Or take really long trips. Getting home and everything aches makes me think of this song. I think the hope was that less kids would take their own lives. “You’re not alone.” And “hold on” repeated endlessly.