To help celebrate the release of R.E.M.’s latest album Collapse Into Now, the folks at EMI Music — who now control the band’s classic college-rock output on I.R.S. Records — have provided us with a generous 5CD/2LP prize pack spanning the band’s ’80s output to award to a lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs reader.
Here’s the deal: One randomly selected winner — from anywhere in the world — will be mailed a box stuffed with the following R.E.M. titles on CD and vinyl:
- Fables of the Reconstruction: 25th Anniversary Edition (2CD)
- Fables of the Reconstruction (180-gram audiophile vinyl)
- Lifes Rich Pageant (1CD)
- Document (1CD)
- Document (180-gram audiophile vinyl)
- Eponymous (1CD)
- And I Feel Fine: The Best of the IRS Years 1982-1987 (1CD)
To enter, simply drop a comment below — by now, you know the drill; it can be any comment, but if you want, humor us by naming your favorite R.E.M. song and explaining why you think it’s so great. We’ll take entries until noon EST Friday, April 22. After that point, we’ll select one winner at random and contact them via e-mail — so please remember to use a legit address when you enter. One entry per person.
UPDATE 4/22/11: All right, time’s up. Contest is closed. After a record 462 entries, we’ve randomly selected one person to win the R.E.M. prize pack. And that person is Jennifer L. Congrats, and thank you all so much for entering and sharing your stories and memories.
I think I closed every college radio show for a whole semester with “It’s the End Of the World As We Know It.” I almost had the words down by the end of the term.
The One I Love. No explanation necessary
awsome prize pack!cant wait to see a real viynl record in real life
Can’t really pick a favorite… anything from Murmur, Reckoning or Fables.
REM in the ’80’s changed how I looked at music. Perfect Circle gets my vote for the mood it invokes in me personally. Nostalgic and comfortable.
Love this blog. Keep up the great work!
It’s hard to pick one song, but today I”ll choose “Near Wild Heaven” because it features Mike Mills.
I’ve always been partial to “Pretty Persuasion”. It was one of the first REM tracks I ever heard and the song that made me fall in love with the band.
For some reason “Ages Of You” always stuck with me, and “Lifes Rich Pageant” is still one of my favorite albums of all time. There’s nothing I don’t like about that record.
Please enter me in your REM giveaway – and as for a favorite song, I’m going to go with “Life and How To Live It” from “Fables” because to me, this is the album where the band started to realize that they were on to something that could be pretty amazing, and “Life” has that energy and urgency about it that shows they’re really getting serious about their craft. Amazing song, amazing album, amazing group.
Definitely one of the bands that got me through adolescence… one of my favourite albums, even though a collections of b-sides & demos, is “Dead Letter Office”… loved the title & the personal band stories about each song… I wore that tape out! And yes, I said “tape”… I’m old!
I love their cover of Toys in the Attic.
I cannot possibly pick a favorite IRS-era R.E.M. song, but just the thought of “Voice of Harold” from DEAD LETTER OFFICE makes me smile.
“Perfect Circle” because it is beautiful.
Why should I win??? Because Mikey Stipe told me I was a really good dancer once when we were all out boogieing in Athens GA one night!!
As far as whats my favorite song and why??
There is not just one song I can single out, as
so much of the bands music has been a part of my life from the bands beginning.I love them ALL!~
“Don’t faaaaallll on meeeeeeeee….”
My favorite has got to be Orange Crush…’cause it’s awesome.
I totally miss good, old R.E.M. Would love to win. Can I haz win?
“Can’t Get There From Here.” I was more of a Replacements fan in high school, but R.E.M. won me over during college. I still remember the college newspaper mocking a fraternity for wanting a local hipster band to play frat rock songs at their party instead of the VU & Stooges covers they wanted to play. Then R.E.M. came through with Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians opening, and for the encore both bands came out & did a whole set of goofy 60’s covers like “Hang On Sloopy”. It was hilariously “unhip”.
Pick one REM song? If I have to I’ll go with “Pretty Persuasion.” Those early songs won’t ever get old.
cuyahoga!
Pretty Persuasion – Seems to encapsulate the R.E.M. “sound” to me.
Gardening at Night is my favorite track. Such great jangly guitar-work on it, and a solid tune all around.
“Gardening at Night”. Listening to “Chronic Town” for the first time was a jaw-dropping experience. I listened to that cassette so much that all of the writing wore off.
I’m Josh and I like R.E.M.
Recently, my favorite song has been UBerlin. I love it because it’s incredible. It makes me feel happy when I’m down, it’s inspiring, and it’s got an amazing video to go along with it. “Hey now don’t forget that change will save you” is one of the best lines in any song I’ve ever heard. It’s one of those songs that is awesome to wake up to. It’s a song I want to listen to non-stop, all day…just because it makes me feel like nothing can bring me down. Sort of invincible in a way I guess. Not many songs have been able to do that.
And that is my favorite song and why it’s my favorite. :)
You should also pick me because I’ve never won any online awesome contest thing ever, but if you don’t that’s okay too. You’re still my favorite music blog.
Nightswimming and You are the Everything – make me think about summer and dating the girl who became the woman I married.
hard to choose from so many – Life and How To Live It today, maybe World Leader Pretend if you ask me tomorrow
When I was in high school some guys did “Superman” in a lip sync contest that was otherwise a long series of blah pop hits. I tracked down one of them and found out who the band was, and found out that my taste in music was the one hint of non-dorkiness in my math-team-and-marching-band high school self. It carried me through.
“Begin the Begin”, as the best first track on an album, ranks up there with “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
I love this song because every Friday of my college freshman fall, I’d walk home after class at 4pm and pass by a house with couches in the front yard and 10-foot speakers blaring the whole “Lifes Rich Pageant” album. That song came up first, and I could hear it blocks away. The opening notes were announcing not just “Begin the Begin”, but the beginning of the weekend.
Every time I hear that opening now, I smile, and remember a pure moment of happiness from a much simpler time.
Its the end of the world, and i feel fine
congrats Slicing Up Eye Balls on the great score!!
Wendell Gee – because I have a weakness for twangy, sentimental pseudo-folky banjo songs.
“So. Central Rain” from Reckoning. One of those songs that was there at a certain time in my life — we all have those songs, for different reasons and different people.
I agree, it’s hard to pick just one, but “These Days” has always swelled my heart with future possibilities, every time I hear it I’ve got to turn it up loud, sing along, and wipe a few tears from my eyes :)
Fly to carry each his burden
We are young despite the years we are concern
We are hope despite the times
All of the sudden, these days
Happy throngs, take this joy wherever, wherever you go
“Harbor Coat.” It is every beautiful fall day ever.
If I get this one, I’ll start buying vynils again.
Life’s Rich Pageant was the soundtrack to my college years, my boyfriend’s band tried to cover the whole thing…but that didn’t work out too well. Love every one of these albums.
I had a dream many years ago that I met Michael Stipe and he asked me to name my favorite REM song and I was seriously stressing out trying to decide on Letter Never Sent or Exhuming McCarthy
I want free stuff.
Catapult & Shaking Through
I.like.dots.
I.like.R.E.M.
“Life And How To Live It” is one of my favourites. Not only it sounds incredibly great, the song also has an interesting story behind it.
First REM show was on the Fables tour with The Minutemen opening. Michael Stipe wore a dress and sang Born To Run…weird night. Loved them ever since. Fav songs are So. Central Rain and Pretty Persuasion.
Talk about that passion. I want them discs and LPs.
Just don’t mail them to the Dead Letter Office. -=JR=-
Wolves Lower because it may be the best 1st song ever from any band. When I put on Chronic Town the first time (and yes, I still have the LP) and heard Wolves I knew I was listening to something abnormally special. Great guitar, great rhythm, and the voice.
Very special indeed ~;-)
My formative years. And REM had a lot to do with forming them. Best song – Swan Swan H. Undoubtedly. First ever REM song I could really sing and play well. Thank You.
“Moral Kiosk” sounds amazing blitzed out of your mind in a dingy gay bar in Long Beach, so I’ll pick that one.
Just one? Esh. Man In The Moon. Or Try Not to Breathe.
Almost anything from Document or Fables.
Welcome to the occupation!
Orange Crush always energizes me!
King of Birds ~ lyrics & music come together in a profound way for me. http://youtu.be/49AMohGRtow
a hundred million birds fly away….
“Swan Swan Hummingbird” has stuck with me since I first saw the documentary “Athens, GA”.
So many favorites, it’s impossible to choose just one. There are so many moods involved!
1,000,000
oooops, I went over and looked at the album.
of course it’s 1,000,000, but my vote is still Wolves
Love all their 80’s stuff. I wish Stipe still had hair.
Fables on the Walkman in study hall…..good times
(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville! For the memories!!! I LOVE REM!
My favorite REM record is not an REM song – it’s their cover of Pylon’s “Crazy”. It’s so thoroughly disorienting yet beautiful from start to finish that it makes being crazy sound like fun. Favorite REM songs have changed over the years so I’ll claim “All The Way To Reno” as the current favorite. It answers the question, “What would swamp rock sound like in outer space”.
Best song – “I Believe” of Pageant, hands down
You pick your island in the sun.
“Feeling Gravitys Pull,” for the sense of menace and wonder set to one of the most creative, fascinating guitar riffs ever.
r.e.m. was my gateway drug to every other “alt” band that followed. I bought the Chronic Town EP (used)from Mole’s in Columbus, Ohio in 1980. I still have it. I don’t like naming favorites, but will say that Everybody Hurts appeals to me in so many ways because of it’s beautiful sadness.
My favorite REM memory:
Green tour 3/8/89 with an encore featuring Bob Mould as a guest. Awesome! Wish I had a recording.
I never win nuthin!
Also, literally impossible to rank their best, say, 20 songs. A twenty-way tie for first.
1,000,000 (and the rest of chronic town)
Cuyahoga!!!
Pick me!! ;)
Life’s Rich Pageant is a huge favorite album of mine. The song “These Days” will always remind me of being young, about to go start my life and my friends and I blasting that song the morning of my college commencement – “we are young despite the years / we are hope despite the times / all of a sudden these days happy throngs / take this joy wherever you go…”
Losing My Religion obviously,what else can I say?
“Half a World Away.” It’s both sad and empathetic.
If you throw in that thing Peter Buck is wearing around his neck in the picture, this would be complete…
Oh, and I’ve always been partial to “Green Grow the Rushes”, “Harborcoat”, and “Boxcars”, as well as the cover of “Femme Fatale”.
I can’t pick one favorite by them, it depends on my mood as to which I prefer at that particular moment! So, basically, I hope to win because this package ROCKS!
Here’s hoping Life’s Rich Pageant gets the reissue treatment soon as well!
So. Central Rain…brings back a bunch of memories.
I’ll be original. Losing my religion. A classic.
I vividly remember laying with my eyes closed on the living room floor of our house in Germany, sun shining in, listening to Document on my family’s *first* CD player and component home stereo system.
concert with 10000 maniacs in page auditorium one of the highlights of my college years. rem truly one of the best bands ever!
my choice from this era would be “feeling gravity’s pull” —always reminds me of great high energy gig in iowa city i witnessed in may 1985 –rem also threw a great house party after the show
I have so much that I could say about REM but instead i will share this blog i wrote, themed around the REM songs that became the soundtrack of my life.
thanks!
http://niftywench.blogspot.com/2009/03/sweetness-follows-part-one.html
My all time favorite is “Map & Legends” from Fables of the Reconstruction. Awesome lyrics: “The map that you painted didn’t seem real/ He just sings whatever he’s seen/ Point to the legend, point to the east/Point to the yellow, red and green.”
2nd and 3rd respectively would be “Turn You Inside-Side Out” from Green–great one while I run and “Drive” from Automatic for the People as the album came out when I was at Basic Training and it was the first cassette tape I bought when we were allowed walkmans. That one got me through the remainding weeks and I met someone from GA who knew Peter Buck in my platoon.
I have a story about not really my favorite song…but it is Rockville. And the reason is because when I saw REM in the 80’s at the Greek Theatre when they first came out that song was all over the radio. That concert still remains one of my top 10 of all time. And REM were SO FRIGGIN’ cool that they never even played that song at the show! So, please send me the goods!!! Thank you.
Hmmm… I don’t know. I don’t have a favorite. LOL!
These Days -big tune for college
“Letter Never Sent” is my favorite R.E.M. song. Based on the lyric “vacation in Athens is calling me,” my friend, Bart, and I trekked down to Athens our senior year of high school (1992). We fell in love with the place and moved there after graduating. I still love the song, the band, and the city.
so central rain- you’ll be “soooo-rrry” if i don’t win this!
Ages of You (live in Boston, 1983), because it’s the shimmering glory of the American new wave, gothic and strange and sparkling, all at the same time. A fun mystery. In eyeliner.
Superman!
My favorite song would have to be Country Feedback.
Cuyahoga from Lifes Rich Pageant – a true 80s classic and still an all time favourite 25 years later.
So. Central Rain. First one I ever heard, back in 1985, and I was transfixed. It felt at once comfortable and brand-new, unlike anything I’d ever heard before and yet I was sure it was a classic song everyone but me knew.
just because.
I wanna eat Michael Stipe’s eyeballs.
How about a favorite line – I’ve always loved “It’s a Man Ray kind of sky / let me show you what I can do with it” in “Feeling Gravitys Pull” – not only for the allusion, but for the sense of turning the tables at the end of that line.
Ahhhh. REM in the 80’s. The only REM that really matters.
For me, my life took a huge leap in the direction of music with a
listen of one album…R.E.M.’s “Green”. During my 14th summer, an
older, visiting cousin took over her Dad’s car with her newly won
license. Two of us, her cousins, were 14 and felt an indescribable
feeling of freedom and possibilities as the top of the car folded down
and we took to the streets. The cassette deck spun to life and what
came out of the speakers was an entirely new world put to music.
Strident, jangly pop rock…caustic political unrest…heartbreaking
vocals that made the hair on my arms stand on end. A beautiful,
brilliant album unlike anything I had ever heard…perfect in its
imperfections. The results were a discovery of “college rock”…The
Cure, The Smiths, The Banshees, and so many more. I became an avid
collector and devourer of music. I became a college DJ. I became a
club DJ. I learned bass guitar from Mike Mills and Simon Gallup. I
sang in bands. I toured and recorded. I dreamed big dreams and
Experienced true moments of Rapid Eye Movement. Thank you R.E.M. for
changing my life. And thank you, eyeballs, for keeping me connected to
those new world moments.
7 Chinese Brothers. The guitar is hypotic.
Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)
One of my claims to fame was seeing them perform outdoors supporting Chronic Town and having extended eye contact with Michael. We didn’t know he was gay then. If I had known, I may have converted ;>
Texarkana. Best atmosphere.
Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)…fueled many college parties for us in the 80’s
So. Central Rain is the song which brought REM to my attention and for that I am forever grateful.
My favorite REM song has always been “Sitting Still.” Aside from being a happy, upbeat song, one good thing about it is that you can sing along at the top of your lungs and nobody can make fun of you for messing up the lyrics because, really, who the hell knows what they are. So go ahead and belt it out, people… I-I-I can hear you…
“Fables…”, “Life’s…” & “Document” are my three favorite R.E.M. albums. Definitive albums from my definitive years.
Harborcoat!
Begin the Begin. Great opening song to my favorite R.E.M. album. Saw them on the Reckoning tour with the Dream Syndicate opening. Great show, I remember that live they were fast and sloppy, the only way to play.
Good Advices is my favorite song – because when you greet a stranger you should, indeed, look at her shoes – but I can go you one better. I have a blog posting about my early obsession with Michael Stipe and REM called “Distiple: An Obsession in Ten Albums”:
http://celebritiesindisgrace.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/distiple-an-obsession-in-ten-albums-by-lisa-borders/
Radio Free Europe
People mentioned a lot of my favorites from the early years, so I’ll say “Near Wild Heaven”, that song gets caught in my head a lot
“Life and how to live it” and “these days” are my favorite classics. That is when I learned music could be more than love songs.
Hard Choice, there are so many. I was in Athens too late for the golden age, but they still were a great part of my youth. Of course, classics like “End of the World” and “Orange Crush” but “Losing my Religion” really took them mainstream. It would be great to listen to hours of R.E.M. and really decide :)
Too many to choose!! But if I have to pick just one, I suppose it would be Gardening at Night. That’s the song that really cemented my love of their music and I’ve been a fan ever since.
I’m going to give the offbeat answer. Electrolite. I know it’s from a completely different era and an album that so many despised, but it should not be forgotten. I grew up with the early records but Hi-Fi came out in that moment when i’d fallen back in love with Neil Young and so many other things with beautiful rough edges, and that album is full of them. Electrolite is pitch perfect pop that is deep but doesn’t feel the need to be profound. Just wonderful. It’s one of the songs I play on sunday mornings while making coffee and breakfast with a bit of fog in your head. Like a soft blanket, it just makes everything warm.
“Country Feedback” is my favorite R.E.M. song just because it’s so emotional and beautiful. It brings tears to my eyes every time!
The first R.E.M. album that I ever purchased was Chronic Town on cassette. I loved the way the entire record was on both side of the tape. Favorite song has always been Carnival of Sorts(Box Cars).
Fall on Me. It’s everything a great R.E.M. should have. Buck’s chiming guitar, Berry’s big beat, Stipe’s obtuse vocal, and great counterpoint vocals from Berry and Mills. Perfection.
Odd Fellows Local 151, it is a just nasty tune….
Though they obviously know how to rock, I find that most of my favorite R.E.M. songs are ballads.
Perfect Circle is amazing, of course, and tracks like Country Feedback, Find the River, and You Are the Everything leave me speechless.
But a little-discussed song of theirs that really deserves a bigger audience is Sad Professor. Something about the spare arrangement and Stipe’s hangover-like delivery devastates me every time I hear it.
I want to win this! Hooray!
R.E.M. have many great songs, cannot pick one favorite for sure, maybe “Fall On Me”, partly because of the fantastic video Michael did and the many meanings and layers on the song..
How can you pick just one song… but I’ll go with “Flowers of Guatemala” off their masterpiece album “Life’s Rich Pageant”.
Green Grow the Rushes and I Believe!
Perfect Circle. Simply perfect.
My first exposure to REM was when my parents split up and my mom moved to Atlanta from the mid west. As a pre teen I would spend summers with her in Atlanta and while she was at work I would do nothing but watch TV inside in the AC. They had some local basic cable show that would show videos and one day the spotlighted a semi local band and their video “Can’t get there from here”. The moment I watched it I was hooked! It sounded so much better than the processed hard rock I was listening to at the time. A few years later I got to see the “Life’s rich pageant” tour when I was a freshman in high school and I’ve been a huge fan ever since.
Growing up in the 80’s r.e.m. were my fav’s. Favorite song? I dunno, I’m going to go with Wendell Gee. Love the imagery of that one. And congrats to the band for their last two albums! I love them! : )
And by the way, this site rocks too! Keep up the good work!
‘Lifes RIch Pageant’ is an all time fave!
South Central Rain, love the lyrics “Did you ever call” reminds me of high school when I would wait for calls no answering machines!
Wendell Gee…
Find the River!!! So awesome.
“Reckoning” was my first R.E.M. purchase, on vinyl no less! I was fortunate enough to see them in ’87 at Mud Island and they didn’t disappoint. Cheers!
A few weeks ago I did a blog of my favorites. :)
http://brethelm.blogspot.com/2011/03/20-best-songs-of-rem.html
Please enjoy.
Don’t go back to rockville
Radio Free Europe. First song I heard by them in college. I can still remember where i was. Then Reckoning came out and really zapped my mind. This was something new that helped me get through the rest of the ’80s!
Hard to pick, but I’ll say Perfect Circle. SJust one I keep coming back to and am not sick of yet
My favorite is either “Leave” or “Begin the Begin”. “Leave” is just so different from the rest of their material (in a good way) and I love the lyrics in “Begin the Begin”.
Love each and every song by R.E.M.! My family are big fans of this genius band. I remember Swan Swan H from my childhood and Imitation Of Life irremeably brought me into R.E.M.. Their early and recently released songs, they all brighten my everyday.
W is for Wolves, Lower
E is for Everyday Is Yours To Win
L is for Lotus
O is for Old Man Kensey
V is for Voice Of Harold
E is for Electrolite
R is for Radio Free Europe
E is for E-Bow The Letter
M is for Man On The Moon
‘fan om the moon’ here! Lots of luck to all — esp me!
REM (and U2) basically defined my musical taste as an adolescent. I get out of my comfort zone now and then as I’ve gotten older but I still keep coming back to the post-punk genre.
Like many have said – too many great REM songs to choose from but if I had to pick one it would So. Central Rain. Beautiful song. And that bass line kills me.
Was anyone in Dallas for the Life’s Rich Pageant tour? I’ll never forget that show – opened with Harbourcoat and These Days. And Stipe had hair. Lots of it.
Fables is my fave album. Wish I still had my vinyl copy
many favorites, but in high school my friend and I made a music video for “World Leader Pretend” for a video art class. Today when I hear it I think of some pretty good times…
I’d call that photo above “sexy uni-brow”…
Sounds good to me, bring it on! Cheers, Frank
Talk about the passion has always made me feel good…Best concert I ever saw is still R.E.M on the fables tour at the Greek Theater in Berkely, Ca..
Wolves, Lower was the first REM song I ever heard. It’s one of my favorites. However, lately, Harborcoat has been on repeat on my mp3 player, the live one from the Amsterdam album.
Has to be the retake on Seven Chinese Brothers with The Voice of Harold. “A must.”
Impossible to pick just one favorite song, but I still love Superman even after living above people who played it continuously on a loop every Saturday night. Love So. Central Rain, Can’t Get There From Here, the entire Lifes Rich Pageant… My favorite REM memory is my roommate and I getting last minute tickets and mooching a ride with her boyfriend and several of his friends who were already planning a roadtrip to the concert. It was a small venue and they covered Paint it Black as an encore.
I think I’m going to go with “Perfect Circle.” It’s just endlessly beautiful, underrated and written by Bill Berry. Legend has it that he saw some kids playing baseball and envied the innocence they were experiencing, knowing how quickly life would take it away. He began crying, and when he stopped he jotted down the lyrics.
Listeners have found the sound to be an equally cathartic experience since it’s release. It still gets me every time…
Love Nightswimming.
“Begin The Begin”…Those first 8 notes suck you into Life’s Rich Pageant, and it’s impossible to get out.
Love eponyamus…Ton’s I like of that era…Driver 8’s a great one….
Maybe not my favorite, but, ‘Love Is All Around’, from the ‘Radio Song’ b-side, is a nice part of my collection.
Too many to choose, but I love the version of “Leave” on the In Time bonus disc
They are STILL the greatest band in the world today! Proof is that my current favourite REM songs are “Perfect Circle” from Murmur and “Oh My Heart” from Collapse Into Now :-)
I think R.E.M. lost all talent and credibility when Mr. Stipe lost his hair (the exact same thing happened to Smashing Pumpkins when Billy went baldy), but since I like to win things, I think I should win this lovely thing.
Every once in awhile I’ll come back to REM and think “DAMN! This is the greatest band ever! Why haven’t I been listening to them constantly?” Then I listen to every album I own for 6 months, push them on my friends and generally annoy everyone around me with my fanaticism for the band.
I saw REM for first time in 1983 for the “Fables” tour. I hung out after and Michael signed my jeans by sketching artwork from the Driver 8 single on the denim. I don’t have the jeans anymore, I’m a fool for not having kept them.
After the Decemberists cover I fell in love again with Cuyahoga.
Why You Trying To Seconf Guess Me? Still have my original Radio Free Europe 7″ buried in the closet that I had read about in Trouser Press before purchasing…Got to drink some Bloody Marys at Mike Mills house before in Athens so even if I don’t win these Discs I can still die satiated…cheers
Nightswimming.
How many photos of REM have Bill B. and Peter B. upstaging poor wallflower Mr. Stipe?
Some bastards broke into my home two weeks ago and stole my laptop, my ipod, my dvd player (also they stole a SHIRT! I’m still trying to figure out why…)and a bunch of cd’s, including Eponymous and Document and some of Radiohead albums too. That said, I believe I deserve thiz prize. Love ya!
Crush with Eyeliner.
Perfect Circle.. first time I heard it I was entranced by the melody. Then I learned (on storytellers, i think) that Bill Berry came up with the basic melody and chord progression and it made it even better for me. I like it when you don’t hear much from a band member, but every now and then they come up with treasure
These Days. It’s the one that I play the loudest and is absolutely the best live every time.
Picking one favorite is always difficult. “Pretty Persuasion” has always been near the top of the list. But, then, the other day I was listening to my iPod on shuffle and “Find the River” came on and I listened to it over and over until I got home.
I think it’s going to be an R.E.M. day today.
“These Days”. Upbeat. Rockin’. Prominent Mike Mills vocals.
“Losing My Religion”. I know, I know. But it was big when I met my husband, so…
I remember when I first found out who these guys were back in 1987 i saw he video for the one I love and fell in love with the song, shortly after the album green came out absolutely great album I started picking up all their stuff-on cassette tape of course-they was definately one of my favorite artistsduring the late 80s and 90s. In fact I have been wanting to get everything again on cd so this would help out!
Anything off Murmur…I think “Laughing” has to be one of my favorites. Reminds me of driving around in the summer as a teenager, with the windows rolled down and the tape player always on.
I love anything from Life’s Rich Pageant.
I’ve got my Orange Crush!
Fretless. Can’t say why.
Begin The Begin is my favorite R.E.M. song among so many more…. It is the best opening track EVER on one of the best R.E.M. albums!
R.E.M. will always remind me of my high school best friend Jennifer.
Perfect Circle, You Are The Everything, Nightswimming, and At My Most Beautiful make me cry.
Can’t Get There From Here, These Days, Life & How to Live It, and Auctioneer make me dance.
Fall On Me, Driver 8, So. Central Rain & Electrolite make me smile.
I was lucky enough to meet the band at a meet & greet before a show in Las Vegas, and got the chance to tell them that they’re my all-time favorite band & I’ve loved them since I was 16. Then during the show when Michael introduced Man on The Moon he said that he has loved Andy Kaufman since he was 16. And I swear he looked right at me :)
I was also at their Unplugged taping – a benefit of dating the guy answering phones at the radio station holding the contest :) A dream come true!
Pretty Persuasion. The EP and 1st 2 albums are classics and never wear old. It is great they still produce new songs and albums but it will never compare to the indie days.
I love this.
Remember seeing them live on David Letterman’s original show performing “So. Central Rain”. The song was so new that it didn’t have a name yet, and I couldn’t wait until it finally came out on “Reckoning”. Still one of my all-time top 80’s songs!
My favorite R.E.M. song…hmmm. It’d have to be a tie between ‘Pilgrimage’ and ‘Life And How To Live It.’ I’ve loved those two songs (as well as the albums they appear on) since I first heard them as a kid. They are the absolute perfect example of what made (and continues to make) R.E.M. such an awesome band. Timeless, fresh and great stuff to turn new R.E.M. listeners onto more of the boys’ genius. Thanks.
“Nightswimming” is one of my all-time favs because it is stripped down, raw, and evocative.
I would have to go with Radio Free Europe. It was the first song I ever heard from them, and have adored this band ever since!
“Fall On Me” — it’s go the perfect blend of melancholy and despair both lyrically and musically.
My favorite track has to “”Don’t Go Back To) Rockville”- anytime Stipe and Mills harmonize it’s gold.
second guessing
Nightswimming
Murmur , Life’s Rich Pageant, and Fables changed my life. Made me look at music and frankly life differently. Life and How to Live It , and Green Grow the Rushes are 2 of the most beautiful and haunting songs ever.
Heard REM when they opened for Gang of Four in DC a bunch of years back…hmmm…Talk about the Passion. Catapult? I loved their sound that night so much.
This is like picking your favorite child–IMPOSSIBLE! But I can do this b/c I AM SUPERMAN…This has prompted me to go through my old records. RECORDS. WOW…Cuyahoga was great in high school b/c I was an OH transplant in NJ; Perfect Circle because of the flawless line for sloshed high schoolers: perfect circle of acquaintances & friends–drink another to coin a phrase; Can’t Get There From Here–named my 1st car Philomath; You are the Everything b/c it’s just so sexy–and who doesn’t love an accordion?!; A Campfire Song (live) duet with Natalie Merchant when 10,000 opened for REM in Philly in the late spring of ’88–none of my friends could go b/c they were studying for finals (“WTF?” even then!); Orange Crush–the walkie-talkie/radio sounds? Brilliant!–Driver 8 b/c I still think of REM every time I see a floater on a powerline; did we miss anything? CATAPULT…
It’s the End Of the World As We Know It? No problem said Man on the Moon.
Texarkana is my fave R.E.M. song. I remember the first few times I heard it on the radio, thinking that “these MoFos are totally ripping off R.E.M.” My girlfriend at the time finally told that it was R.E.M. Still, we both favor the songs that Mike Mills sings lead. Nothing against Stipe, but it’s refreshing to hear a Mills song.
Gimme, Gimme!
booyah!
“Can’t Get There From Here”. This song had a great video, plus I drive through Philomath every time that I go to Athens.
Favorite REM song: “Find the River”
Favorite IRS years song: “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville”
Leave is my favourite song, mostly because it’s not been overplayed like all of their popular tunes. A band in transition, very melodic tune, very different from their recorded output at that point.
R.E.M. always has and always will be a huge part of who I am. I discovered R.E.M. as a 13 year old at summer camp. I had a counselor who had a bootleg of the band which I believe was a soundboard recording from Tulane University. I still remember you couldn’t hear any crowd noise, but you could hear either Michael or back then maybe Mike saying thank you to the silence.
And the train conductor says take a break driver 8, driver 8 take a break, we’ve been on this trip too long…
Near Wild Heaven! Underrated single and fantastic video.
My pick would have to be “Suspicion” from Up. Love the cold drum machine and Mike Mills’ Beach Boys-esque falsetto. Definitely a spell-caster of a song.
In 1985 Fables Of The Reconstruction was a revelation to this small town buttrocker and former Dokken fan. Long live R.E.M.!
Swan Swan H.
I love to go Nightswimming” after I do some “Gardening at Night.”
I bought Life’s Rich Pageant with my hard-earned summer job money. I wanted to get something new, that I had never heard, and I could only afford one tape, and it was this or a UB40 album. Not just a good choice, but a life-changing one, too. Thanks!
Fell in love with Harbor Coat and the whole “I’m sor-ry” chorus the first time I heard it. Still very much a part of my musical make-up.
Best years of REM.
I have too many favorites.
Funny, been listening to R.E.M. on the iPod past few days. Agree it is hard to pick one favorite, but Driver 8 and the entire Fables LP has always been my fave R.E.M. Murmur changed my entire music world in college. Saw the awesome Reckoning tour with Dream Syndicate in Cleveland many years ago. Others are World Leader Pretend, Bandwagon, Catapult, Flowers of Guatamala, Drive, Electrolite and Wolves Lower. Put on my boots and going down to Walter’s.
Get me some barbecue!
Oddfellows Local 151 behind the firehouse. Where pee wee sits upon the wall to preach. Just a great image and the music fits it so well.
I still own Murmur on vinyl. One of my all time favorites.
Leave is my favourite song on my favourite album of theirs. The title is very unassuming.
Title is my favorite song because I heard them play it live in 87 and it blew my mind. After wearing out my bootleg of that show, I finally discovered what it was called and I wish they had recorded it. But maybe because it wasn’t as overplayed, I’ve always maintained a soft spot for that tune.
Orange crush cuz its cool
Orange Crush…
Tough one on favourite song.
But favouite albums would probaly be ‘Green’ and ‘Automatic For The People’
So many hours spent lisenting to Doccument……soooo many
It’s like asking which of my children I like best.But if I had to pick some of my favorites – Driver 8, These Days, King of Birds, Harbor Coat, Talk about the Passion, World leader pretend.
Favorite REM song; tough one, but one I always go back to is “E-Bow The Letter”. Creepy, catchy, and Patti Smith. Love it.
witchnose@comcast.net
“Losing My Religion”
“Talk About the Passion” is my favorite song off my favorite REM album.
Radio Free Europe! first and best single
“Feeling Gravity’s Pull”
First REM song I ever heard – a friend passed along a tape of Fables to listen to when it first came out. Love that whole album – a bit darker (to me anyway) than their other work. Anyway, this song still captures that excitement and freshness of hearing REM first the time way back in ’85.
Cheers,
Mark
Have been a fan since Fables…would be very hard to pick a favorite from all those years. But, with a gun to my head, I might have to pick Everybody Hurts. It’s just so powerful and meaningful.
a fall evening in 1986 walking along railroad tracks in marietta georgia listening to distant trains going by and “oddfellows local 151”
Document reminds me of freshman year in college. Good memories of listening to the tape on my Walkman while walking to class.
So. Central Rain. I first heard it when I was twelve years old and I got right into all of the older R.E.M stuff. Even after Bill left, they have put out incredible material.
Just give the prize to me……. I do love REM btw
Wendell Gee. It’s sad, southern-gothic and mystical.
I’ve got to go with “Green Grow The Rushes,” which manages to capture both the mystery of early REM with a burgeoning sense of the band being something bigger than the sum of its parts. It’s not hit material, but it’s anthemic in a sweet and melancholy way, and unique and catchy.
“Electrolite,” romantic, magical, and everything good about Michael Stipe.
I’ve always had a soft spot for “World Leader Pretend” even though it dates to later in their career.
Hi there
my fave song is Wendell Gee which I think was a single over in the UK. I won a phone in comp on the radio back then and the prize was a bunch of 7 inch singles…I also got Superman 7 inch as well bizarrely.
I never heard an REM song on that radio station till Green turned up.
Last party
I realize that Eponymous is a Best Of type record but every time i listen to that collection i am taken back to some fantastic memories of being in Jr. high school. My friend let me borrow it. ( I still have it – he he) and It also inspired me to dig into those early albums and have been a undying fan ever since.
Love REM and thanks for the contest! My favorite song from them is “Wolves, Lower” because of the urgency and wonder it makes me feel..
I Believe. No, wait, Green Grow the Rushes. No, Good Advices… or, Shaking Through. No, no, no, hang on — These Days. Perfect Circle. So. Central Rain. Gardening at Night. Swan Swan H.
Forget it. Now I have to go listen to all of it.
I cannot pick just one. Impossible. However, I CAN pick 3:
“I’ll Take the Rain” – Pure emotion, gives me goosebumps every time. Emotional heartache from a love who treats you wrong.
“Fall On Me” – The most gorgeous of harmonies, Mr. Mills.
“Find the River” – Again, I go for the beautiful, emotional ballad.
you know, they really need to get Bill Berry off the farm and do a greatest hits tour and remind everyone why they are one of the great bands of our time.
I love, love, love R.E.M. but they need Bill back in the fold for a bit.
I can never choose between King of Birds & World Leader Pretend.
“Kahoutek” encapsulates the mumbling mystery that is early R.E.M.
Near Wild Heaven is my favorite. My favorite, I think, not really because of the song itself but because I remember it being in my brother’s tape player in his car for the entire summer. I was amazed that he liked the song so much as he was into house and freestyle so much.
The set could consist of 5 Fables CDs and 2 Fables LPs and I’d be happy. Yeah, Fables is my favorite REM record.
“Just a Touch” from Lifes Rich Pageant,
this song always makes me happy, and it’s a shame it only about 3 minutes long, wished it was triple the length !
Well, who can pick a fav R.E.M. song? I’ll pick Wolves, Lower simply because I happened to listen to Dead Letter Office alone in a dark room last night. Thanks for the blog, mates.
I really like “King of Birds” from Document because it marries the best elements of early and middle-period R.E.M. Bill Berry’s drums and Peter Buck’s dulcimer set a distinctive mood, while Michael Stipe’s lyrics and keening voice complement the song perfectly.
“Fall On Me”–next to “Perfect Circle,” perhaps their most beautifully rendered ballad.
I really like Cuyahoga and Don’t Go Back to Rockville.
My first exposure to REM was in 1987 when my family moved to a tiny town in Northern Vermont. I could only get two radio stations, one in French and the other I think was called Peak 103. I was attending private school at the time and had to dress accordingly but always had problems putting on the necktie. Every morning I would hear The One I Love on 103. I was convinced that the line “It’s occupied my time…” was “Cause I can’t tie my tie.” Haha.
I Believe
“Can’t Get There From Here” – 1st REM album bought was Fables; cool, fun video for this song; guitar tab and lyrics were in a guitar magazine after the album came out
1. South Central Rain 2. Talk About the Passion 3. Be Mine 4. Radio Free Europe 5. Perfect Circle 6. So Fast, So Numb 7. At My Most Beautiful 8. Gardening at Night 9. You Are the Everything 10. Feeling Gravitys Pull
I walked with a Zombie and I am Superman…!
Timeless pop culture rears its ugly head again!
Very hard to pick a favorite, but something about the horns on “Can’t get there from here” make it stand out in my mind.
Hard to pick a favorite song, but maybe if I had to, I’d go with Life and How to Live It.
My favorite REM Song is “Radio Free Europe”, followed closely by “Talk about the passion”. It would be great to win the prize pack. So why not pick me?
Why not?
‘Wolves, Lower’- Chronic Town. Classic cover art as well.
I know it wasn’t in the 80’s, but I love “Leave” off New Adventures in Hi-Fi
So. Central Rain
“Don’t Go Back to Rockville” is my favorite song. Maybe because of it’s country influences that show the band was aware of its southern roots. Maybe because of the story that inspired the song. Or maybe because its one of the first songs primarily driven by Mike Mills’s songwriting. All of these reasons make it a constant companion.
I’ve been listening to REM since the alternative underground days of 1982 with CFNY in Toronto. Superman is my favorite, because not only is the sound awesome but it makes you feel like you can do anything. And you can!! Also I was in Athens a year ago. And I kept on asking people where Michael was? Was Michael in town? Crazy yes, but worth the looks, and who knows someone may have known the answer!!!
It was well after the IRS years, but I always had a soft spot for “Strange Currencies.”
‘Texarkana’ and ‘Swan Swan H’ are two songs that I sing along with and feel better as I do. Can’t ask for a song to do more thatn that.
I’ve been a huge REM fan for so long now – since I was about 10 or 11 years old. Though I love all their stuff, I’m still very much in love with the IRS years. Some of my favorites from the IRS years would be :
Fall On Me (favorite REM song ever)
So. Central Rain
Feeling Gravity’s Pull
The One I Love
Shaking Through
and of course, Radio Free Europe.
Even though it wasn’t written by the band, I’ll have to go with Superman as my favorite R.E.M. track since that’s the one that first brought them to my attention. Thanks for running the contest.
I always felt ‘I Believe’ never got the attention it deserved but I could listen to everything on Life’s Rich Pageant a thousand times over and still find something new to love. ‘Fall On Me’, ‘Begin The Begin’, ‘Superman’; that album is chock-full of great songs.
Just discovered this blog, love it!
Fall On Me is my first contact to REM when I was 16 on the radio.
so I dont know how many times I had played the record since then.
man on the moon got me listening.
Wendell Gee. For some reason it just sticks in my mind and has a sort of lullabye effect. Don’t know how to explain it beyond that.
REM was so much better than the crap on the radio. Still is. The three or four REM albums I own are on cassette–that would be fine, if it weren’t for the fact that I haven’t had a tape player in a decade.
“Nightswimming” has a special place in my heart, but I have many favorites. I’ll probably find new ones when I win this package.
What a great band! Thank you for all the great music all these years! Keep up the good work and best wishes to you in the future!
Life’s Rich Pageant.
Favorite song – Cuyahoga
Favorite Album – Document
Driver 8 still makes me swoon.
Wolves, lower. It features all what R.E.M. is about, great music, mysterious lyrics, fantastic backing vocals!
Losing My Religion is the song that became bigger than REM. Those mandolin picks and those song lines were out of time but in tune with the frequency of the collapsing world as we knew it in the early 90s.
Favourite song – Let Me In. Fell in love with it immensely after R.E.M. performed an amazing acoustic version of it during the Accelerator tour – everyone should check it out, sooooo moving.
Don’t Go Back To Rockville – Had some personal meaning for me as I had a job in a town by that very name.
Nightswimming from “Automatic for the people”…going out to the local quarrys with my best friends and swimming at night…fear of getting caught…those were the days!!! Nightswimming takes me right back there!!!
R.E.M. are my life. I fell in love with them in 1987 and it’s continued to this day with my love of Collapse into Now (BTW, favorite song is “Uberlin”). I recently listened to Murmur and realized how powerful of a song “Pilgrimage” actually is. It’s dark, yet you can dance to it, with lyrical content, and, maybe most important, it hasn’t dated at all. The song sounds like it could have been released by any R.E.M.-copy band in 2011.
So central Rain is my favorite REM song from those albums but country feedback is my alltime favorite
new adventures in hi-fi, probably the best recorded rem disc… slamming bass and dynamic
For me, most anything off of Document. For today, Oddfellows Local 151. It was the first album I heard all the way through and is still one of those albums that immediately takes me back to where I first heard it (in my case driving through back woods in Pennsylvania)
Loves me some R.E.M. vinyl … one of my first pick ups was Chronic Town.
Favorite R.E.M. song might be something off Dead Letter Office, like Voice of Harold, you know, one of those songs that they recorded with different lyrics.
Or the cover of King of the Road.
I am (I am) I am Superman! And I can do anything!
My fave song? Disturbance At The Heron House, of course! This song makes me want to dance, and every time I hear it I picture a band of wild monkeys on stage with the band!
Flowers of Guatamala – one of the most haunting and beautiful songs they ever wrote and performed. Stipe uses Amanita, a flower that grows wild on graves, as a symbol for the catastrophe that descended on Guatemala’s Mayan Indian population in the late 1970s and early 1980s. “There’s something here I find hard to ignore,” he sings, “there’s something that I’ve never seen before.” The song’s chorus, with its incantation of “The flowers cover everything,” is as evocative an expression of genocidal killing as any in popular music.
Also a great solo (perhaps my fave) of Mr Buck.
THIS IS MY FAVORITE R.E.M. SONG:
I want everyone to scream (f***). What a stupid word. We say it and do it, day in and day out. I ride through the city at night. Everything is yours and mine.
Tonight.
Blue head lights, red tail lights, yellow street lights. I am the passenger. White line, yellow line, red line. A C Hundred production. I like the way you drive. There’s a reflection in the rearview mirror. I can see you kneeling, taking off your shirt. These clothes don’t fit us right, and I’m to blame, it’s all the same. This flower’s scorched, this film is on. It’s on a maddening loop.
Sometimes I cry over and over again. It’s all the same. Over and over we ran…over and over again.
You wear me out.
You wear me out.
F*** off.
I had control.
You tower over me, shirtless. You have a way with your mouth. I need this. I need this. On a maddening loop. These clothes. I let myself free, and what could it be…but over and over, the end. It’s crazy what you could’ve had. For more than a minute, but less than a lifetime.
I need this.
Pleasure is melting like chocolate. When the crises passes, I’ll follow you outside, with the phony earth below my feet.
All the stars drip down like butter.
Circus.
You are a beautiful clown. Should I laugh you a dollar? Should I say goodbye? With blurry eyes, I’m stuck in a distant stare. I have fallen in love with this sound. My hands are shaking, and I want to run away.
Hey now, little speedy-head. I have got to leave to find my way. You scare me. Overpower.
Blue overcast.
I picture you as I walk away. What dreams we have, day after day. I watched you climb a tree with no clothes on, and no cares inside. You sat there and cried because things are not supposed to be this way. Watch the road and memorize this life that pass before my eyes. Lifes rich demand. Goodbye.
Miles Standish: 1584-1656. American colonist. B. Landshire, England. Hired by Pilgrims to accompany to America on the May Flower in 1620.
A green tree, dirt road. I looked for it and I found it. Let’s begin again. Behind the house he lived in, he hung himself with chicken wire. There wasn’t even time to say – Goodbye. I’ll whistle as the wind blows. Everything is soft here, and you are nowhere near. I look to him and I tell him to buy the sky, and sell the sky. Lift your arms up to the sky. It’s over me.
Blue overcast.
So if I send it to you, you’ve got to promise to keep it home.
11:11 pm
This is not a love song. This is not a love song. Listen to me…this is not a love song. This one goes out to the one I left behind. This is not a love song. A simple prop, to occupy my time.
Fire.
Occupy my time.
Fire.
There was a guy in the front row singing this to a girl. This one goes out to the one I love.
Radio. I miss you. My head kissed the ground. Won’t you miss me? My head touched the ground. You tattered my brain all the way. Beneath me I can feel the comfort. I can feel the place where you were. Coming in fast. This is where you wanted me, needed me, lied to me and betrayed me. Up the stairs to the landing, up the stairs into the hall. This is where I am. Someday you will be called an oasis. That will be my mistake. Don’t you cry. One of these days you’re gonna wake up singing. Spread your little wings. Reach the sky.
Blue overcast.
At my most beautiful. At your most beautiful.
F*** you.
Diminish, a carnival of sorts. Stranger, stranger to these parts…you tip-toed into my dreams like a freight train. I held my breath to turn me blue…
Overcast.
…to ignore the conversation, to forget the words you say. This is where we drank, swam, hunted, danced and sang. This is where you lied to me. Nothing can bring me closer, nothing can bring me near. Better I go where the land touches the sea. There is my trust in what I believe. To leave it, believe it, leave it all behind.
Memory.
Leave.
Leave.
I have reached the day in which I will forget you. I’ll swim the ocean blue
Overcast.
and let the salt water eat you away from me. I’ll close my eyes and try not to breath. You take a walk, and try to understand. Nothing can hurt you. You take a walk. You take a walk. I will follow. I want to reach for your hand but it seems to be a million miles away. Turn to me, walk to me. I’m falling a million miles to you. These sweetest dreams of you. This is my mistake. Let me make it good. I raised the wall, and I’m the only one. I will be the one to knock it down. I’m tired.
Reach out to me.
The only thing I ever wanted was to be something to someone. I’m Martin Sheen, I’m Steve McQueen. I’m Jimmy Dean. You are the star tonight.
Drive.
Leave.
What if I ride, what if you walk. Maybe you’re crazy in the head…
Baby.
(Peter, I like this guitar)
Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
Windout windout windout.
So. Central Rain – it’s a choon!
It’s gotta be “So. Central Rain”, no contest. That ending still brings the chills every time I hear it, even now, almost 30 years on…
Currently: “I Believe” Just a great song with some good harmonies.
This band has evolved so much over the years that it’s very hard to pin down one song. Instead, I have to narrow it to three. “Country Feedback”, “Wolves, Lower” and “Seven Chinese Brothers”.
“Wolves, Lower” and “Seven Chinese Brothers” are sentimental favorites from when I was first exposed to R.E.M. by a neighbor in high school. I’d never heard anything like that before since I was mostly a punk fan. This jangling, arpeggiated sound was totally new to me. It blew my mind.
“Country Feedback” just hit me at the right time. My life was about to change in a huge way and I could see it coming. Out Of Time became the soundtrack for that year of my life and “Country Feedback” is one track I could hear over and over without ever getting tired.
My favorite R.E.M. song is Cuyahoga. It evokes a lot of emotion in me; the lyrics are very touching and the music is just perfect. It’s so easy to fall in love with this song!
My favorite one it’s Pilgrimage, reminds me a old radio station that i use to listen and this radio reminds me when i was in the college…. Good years!!! You never forget the college years…
I go with “Fall on me”. In this song there is the secret R.E.M.’s weapon: Mike Mills’ voice.
Find The River, is the best song because it has reminded me so many times that we make our own path during this trip called life.
hmm… lightin’ hopkins because the rhythm is wicked and stipe sounds angry. that’s how i like him best.
the perfect and most emotional “love song” ever “I count your eyelashes, secretly ,With every one, whisper I love you, I let you sleep, I know you’re closed eye watching me, Listening, I thought I saw a smile”
Country Feedback: wow!
Not so easy to choose…too many songs for too many reasons…but if I have to pick one, then it is Find The River…simply perfect!
Find The River.
Why? The song is simply beautiful. The guitars are soft yet powerful and deep. The keyboard line is blissfull and the bass simple and steasdy. What sets this song apart are the vocals. The backing vocals of Mills and Berry bring tears to my eyes whenever I hear them, and they leave a clear and haunting impression on listners. Stipe’s vocals just go beyond that. He’s at his best lyrically, and the imagery he conjours is exquisite. The delivery is perfect and fraught with raw emotion, but what sets this song above all others in the history of music is the last line. ‘All of this is coming your way’ – The inspiration for life and how you can always make something of whatever you have elevates this song above normal music.
Favourite song? That would probably have to be “It Happened Today” from their newest album. That vocal jam at the end is truly unbeatable! :D
If I don’t win this contest, I’m going back to Rockville!
Perfect Circle. Achingly beautiful.
Wendell Gee !!!! Peter Buck’s least favorite R.E.M. song !
I’m gonna do an album instead of a song: Lifes Rich Pageant.
I hope I win. Although I own several of the tracks, I don’t own Fables or Document.
Their unreleased song Fascinating. Beautiful and haunting.
“Fall on me”
Well seeing as R.E.M. is my favorite group of all time, picking one favorite song is virtually impossible as there are so many amazing ones to choose from, but one that always stands out to me is “Falls to Climb.” It’s one of those songs that would certainly be on the soundtrack to my life. To me it speaks to the challenge of remaining a good person in the midst of a cruel world and trying to show by example that it doesn’t have to be that way, even if by doing so you get the short end of the stick.
Hmmmm…..favorite song? Too many good ones to pick just one. But if you’re gonna make me I’d have to say “Begin the Begin” on Life’s Rich Pageant.
Life and How to Live it
I’m looking to start up my vinyl collection again, and what better way than with a bunch of R.E.M.! I think all of their albums from the IRS years are some of the best albums ever made.
Hard question… Maybe Strange currencies, so many memories… Listening to it live in Verona was one of the BEST moments ever!!
Sitting Still because it reminds me of the golden age of music back in the 80’s when I was in high school.
Talk About The Passion
‘Get Up’ was always my favourite as a kid. I did a class presentation on it when I was 8 talking about how much I loved Mike Mills and how great this song is.
There are so many!
Country Feedback is always a great one, especially when performed live as is DRIVE, Find the River, Electrolite, Nightswimming etc etc, I could go on but maybe there is not enough space?! You wanted more humor? I can try…I stop before it gets boring, I hope)
“I GET UP”, “DRIVE” “ALL THE WAY TO RENO” on a “High SPEED TRAIN”, “FIND THE RIVER”, I “HOPE” to see the “KING of BIRDS” “SITTING STILL”, “UNDERNEATH THE BUNKER” there was a “PARAKEET” than “SEVEN CHINESE BROTHERS” came “SHAKING THROUGH” singing “DON’T GO BACK TO ROCKVILLE” etc etc…
Auctioneer (Another Engine) has become my current favorite…i think i saw REM about 8 times before they had signed to Warner Bros. About 3 times on the Fables tour and when Stipe took to the lecturn during this tome (with bleached blond hair and painted on Groucho eyebrows) he was like a southern baptist preacher possessed with passion for rails and jewelry making…i think i will listen to it right now…
Anything from Automatic for the people
Brint it!
I can’t choose one….but let’s say “fall on me”!
pretty persuasion or driver 8
Radio Free Europe–changed the way I thought about music.
PSA/Bad Day-the original demo version from 1986 or so. It has all of the R.E.M. attributes – vocal harmonies, Buck’s aggressive strumming, Stipe’s half-mumbled, halting delivery. This version isn’t the best quality, and the track ends early, all of which complements the ineffable, out-of-nowhere quality of the band’s music.
I’ve really come to appreciate Fables more and more as the years go by.
It’s hard to pin down. I like the first 5 albums the best which just so happens to be the IRS years! I remember hearing Radio Free Europe on the radio and really liking it and thought it was weird that the lyrics were so hard to hear and decipher. Perfect Circle is a fave, Feeling Gravitys Pull, Swan, Swan Hummingbird, Exhuming McCarthy. What a fantastic set to win.
My little secret: I don’t own any REM, would love to own some via this prize package.
I never tire listening to “Photograph”; the interplay between the 2 voices (via headphones of course) is fantastic.
Wolves, Lower is one of their best. One of my treasures is the Chronic Town vinyl EP from the 80’s
The One I Love – what else
Still remember my first crush back in the 80s
Dancing with her
Feeling her body close to mine
Uhhhmmm what more ???
night swimming
forever night swimming
mmm…Ghostrider, motorcycle hero
Bebebebebebebe he’s lookin so cute…
Great contest! Today’s favorite will be “Perfect Circle – great use of a drum machine and two pianos.
Half A World Away
I like the lyrics. I like the melody. I like to sing along on this one. I could understand all the words Michael was singing.
Whenever I hear “Camera”, I can still smell her perfume.
I don’t have a favorite. It changes every day. Today it’s “Country Feedback”, live preferably. Discovering R.E.M. changed my life. That’s not hyperbolic. Back in 1992, I was all set to go to a small private college, but in the end I just couldn’t resist the pull of Athens and UGA, with some dreamy fantasy that if I could just meet Michael Stipe, he’d make me his best friend (or girlfriend–I was that naive!). Maybe that’s not an uncommon sort of fantasy when you’re 17, or maybe I really was obsessed, or both. In the end, I did meet Michael, several times actually, and thank goodness I played it cool. My friends from Athens, and the experiences that I had there, made me the person I am today, and I can’t imagine what my life would have been like had I not picked a college based on my favorite band’s hometown. Now, 15 years after I graduated, I’m moving back to Athens in a couple of months. The town, like the band, got into my blood, and I keep coming back for more.
I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s my favorite R.E.M. song, but “Fall On Me” resonates strongly with me on mornings when the daily routine is hurting my spirit.
I saw REM when I was in college on their “Green” tour (’89 or so). I had no idea what to expect from a live show. And then Michael Stipe exploded onto the stage, dancing, wriggling, commanding the audience with a bullhorn. Amazing!
Favorite album: “Fables of the Reconstruction” or “Life’s Rich Pageant”
Favorite Song: “Exhuming McCarthy” – man is that song still relevant (looking your way FoxNews).
There’s nothing like listening to the original vinyl EP Chronic Town for the first time. “1,000,000” had the girls shakin’ their thangs. That’s what rock ‘n’ roll is all about. The next four albums were icing on the cake. Love them all.
fied a large
I have tons of REM favorite songs but here are a few,
Don’t go back to Rockville — because I just sang and sang that song after trekking in the 80s
Begin the Begin.
and lastly..
You can’t get there from here, because well. Its true. You can’t. And it celebrates “southernisms” so well.
Me gustan tantas canciones de REM que me resulta imposible elegir una, pero me quedo con “Stand”, por ser la primera canción que escuche de REM, cuando era muy pequeño (10 años quizá)jugando en la terraza de mí casa familiar; mí vecino (de más edad) había comprado “GREEN” y durante un verano escuchaba todos los días este disco mientras jugaba con mí hermano.
“Stand” nos gustaba especialmente. Y desde aquel día hasta hoy soy fan de REM. Y “Stand” es uno de mis recuerdos de infancia, del piso donde vivíamos, de mis vecinos, de mi hermano y de mis juguetes.
Salud
“star me kitten”. its brilliance was enough to make me late for school.
My favorite R.E.M. song is Pilgrimage. Murmur, where all the magic started.
So. Central Rain
I think that it’s a tie for me between wolves,lower; cuyahoga; and the one I love.
Wolves,Lower to me embodies everything that was great about really early REM. Amazing guitar hook, ridiculously catchy chorus, really dancey beat. Overall, I feel like it captures everything that really blew everyone away when they first heard/saw REM.
Cuyahoga is really beautiful. I feel like it’s the beginning of REM’s transition into “early maturity”. I don’t mean that in an insulting, they-don’t-rock anymore way of course. I feel like it all just really came together in a BIG way on pageant.
The one I love is just basically the best pop song ever. EVER.
Life and how to live it for a number of reasons: the story behind the song, the change between the beginning of the song with that slow guitar and how they rush their energy in when they play it live, because it is still one of these songs that have the ability to pull me up and really move me…
Truly unique sound – truly unique band. As for a favorite … any track from Life’s Rich Pageant.
people always hate it when i say that my favorite r.e.m. track is “suspicion”. some say it’s damn sexy, but for me the song is all about the pictures you wind up getting in your head, and the great atmosphere that the track itself provides.
I always thought that REM had the best avant-garde hairstyles of any band! Still do! Keep it up!
I’ve been thinking about it and cannot decide on just one song.
“So. Central Rain” … and many, many others.
All The Way To Reno, great melody
“can’t get there..” is the fave song, LRP is the fave album…..saw them live first time in ’86 for pageant tour – met peter and bill in parking lot. They r still great.
“The Wrong Child” — because of Stipe’s delivery of “but it’s okay”
”What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”
Not my favorite R.E.M of all time but their cover of
Syd Barrett’s ‘Dark Globe’ is an absolute hidden gem.
crush and eyeliner was my favorite song as a kid. whenever the video came on mtv i waited for an appearance by CRUSH soda. i never really knew what the lyrics were about, i guess
I always thought “Swan Swan H” was like a beautiful lullaby. I wish I’d sung my daughters to sleep with it.
We’re still Exhuming McCarthy
Driver 8!
The opening track from Chronic Town.. I’ll never forget hearing Wolves, Lower for the first time and thinking ‘wow!’.. That was the beginning of almost 30 years (gasp!) of loving REM music. Listening to Chronic Town today brings me back to being that 13 year old that spent his weekly newspaper route money buying the Chronic Town EP from the old SAM The Record Man in downtown Toronto, because the cover was ‘cool’..
Favorite song ever from REM? Begin the Begin
cuyahoga, cuz it is sad
gravity’s pull, cuz of the wicked cool guitar riff
REM helped raise me (along with Echo, Jesus, B-52’s, Pylon, Cure, Siouxsie, Feelies, Velvet Undgd, Depeche, Bauhaus, Smiths, New Order), so how in the name of Michael Stipe, could I possibly pick one song?? It all depends on my mood, but I think I’ll go with a track from the first REM LP I ever bought… Wendell Gee – Fables of the Reconstruction…
REM influenced my path in life because I started reading the authors they name dropped and seeking out the culture they commented upon. And their music, especially Murmur and Reckoning, transformed me into an English major, and I’ve been teaching HS English for close to twenty years now.
The first one that comes to mind is “Gardening at Night.” Something about the not-quite-understood vocal delivery let me fill in the gaps in a thousand different ways.
Night Swimming evokes a period of my life with such vivid clarity that… it is my favorite song. I didn’t think that sentence out very well.
Their cover of King Of The Road. By the time they recorded it, they had all been way overserved and it sounds like it [in the best way possible].
Or their cover of Crazy by Pylon. Almost as great as the original.
Begin the begin….to this day I havent heard a better opener on a record
I’ve been listening to REM for 20+ years… my mom would always listen to them in the car when I was a kid… when I grew up a little I inherited all her tapes ( every album from ‘murmur’ to ‘monster’) and listened to over and over…
REM is one of my top favorite bands of all time.
Night Swimming always makes me feel transported.
Harborcoat, fall on me, rockville, exhuming mccarthy. it’s hard to choose, but i’ve always had a soft spot for Walter’s theme from deadletter office. i always wanted to try his bbq. and he’ll give me a bag …to put it in
Talk about the passion… personal favorite. Along with so many others!
R.E.M. is my favorite band ever. I guess my favorite song is “Half A World Away.” The sweeping emotion of Michael Stipe’s singing and Mike Mills’ haunting backup vocals mixed with the Baroque-esque harpsichord and Peter Buck’s urgent guitar make this an exceptionally beautiful composition, even for the the Best Band Ever. The violin crescendo near the end is exquisite. On the same album, “Belong” also stands out to me.
I think that my favorite version of Half a World Away is from the R.E.M. Unplugged (1991) which is an AMAZING Unplugged!
commmmmmment
Anything off of Murmur is pretty much gold to me. Such a great album, but if I HAD to pick 1 song it would be “West of Fields”.
World Leader Pretend
The Green album was so ahead of it’s time lyrically…LOVE R.E.M.!!!!
I’m hard pressed to choose only one song, but I can choose a favorite album and that would be Green…
Love their earlier work, “Can’t Get There From Here” was the first R.E.M. song I ever heard…and remains my favorite to this day. “I’ve been there I know the way
…can’t get there from here”
Document. My first concert, age 14, Palace West, Phoenix, AZ. Got back stage and flirted shamelessly with Michael Stipe who ignored me for the New Times Reporter. I did however get snapped with Mike and the photo made the front page. 18 yrs later, 4 kids later, I still have that pic to remind me of the days I followed this band around. Scored some cool points w/ my teenager too. Murmur will always be in my top 3. Perfect Circle & Catapult.
‘Swan Swan H’ The Decemberists must’ve worn out their copy of ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’, especially this track.
My favorite R.E.M. song is not from the 80’s. Though I love the more indie R.E.M., Man On The Moon from Automatic For The People is, for me, the best. I cry everytime I hear it, I don’t exactly know why, but there’s something in those lines that really move me.
Their cover of ‘Crazy’ by fellow Athenians PYLON (from the b-side to ‘Driver 8’) was both sublime and decisive.
begin the begin
fall on me
near wild heaven
ahh happiness
“Voice of Harold” might have been some sort of half-assed joke song, but I love it a little bit more every time I hear it.
Also a huge fan of “Pretty Persuasion” and “Begin the Begin” but it’s really hard to find any less-than-great songs on those first 5 albums.
R.E.M. have so many totally distinct and fantastic songs that it’s hard to pin just one down, but the one I probably come back to the most is Seven Chinese Brothers. That song seems to speak directly to me in so many situations in my life, even though I can’t ever decide what it’s actually about. And that guitar line is poetry.
“Don’t Go Back to Rockville,” and I’m not exactly sure why.
Loved “Don’t go back to Rockville” song for I lived my High School Days not far from Rockville Md.
My favorite song is “So fast so numb”. It’s raw and yet powerful. The way a rock song should be. I just love it!
My faves lie at two ends of the spectrum…. South Central Rain & The Great Beyond.
superman!!!! i can do anything!!!
“Wake-Up Bomb.” Just a couple of bars in and I’m practicing my T.Rex moves and making a scene.
Exhuming McCarthy. From one of the best albums of that era. The message is still on point almost 30 years later – scary thought!
Harborcoat
Everytime I hear it it transports me back to my teenage bedroom where where everything was still possible.
(Actually, anything off of the first two albums tends to have this effect but hey, you asked for one.)
I liked their earlier stuff better – back when they performed in Michael’s bathtub with the lyrics written on the back of a cracker. Now it’s all mainstream living room pandering and corporate-sponsored Wheat Thins.
I dig R.E.M. and I dig 80’s R.E.M. especially so!
Life And How To Live It.
1985. I’m 14 and the folks decide to take me with them to Kauai. I’m bored out of my pubescent skull and start walking into town. I get to a strip mall where, seen through the windows, are beautiful women unloading records and appearing to be setting up a record store. I gaze deeper into the establishment to find one exceedingly lucky bastard staring from behind the counter at the lovely lasses working fervently.
He wears shorts and a t-shirt. He wears “John Lennon” glasses. I enter and walk closer to a shelf of albums to peruse what genre these cats are into. Stacks and stacks of 80’s college rock vinyl! Then, one of the goddesses moseys on over and notices me checking out the head honcho behind the desk, still a ways away. She asks me if I know who he is. I don’t. And, with a sort of pride, she tells me it is “Colin, the bassist for XTC.
Now, I don’t think Dear God hit yet and God knows I should have jumped for proverbial joy because i had heard Making Plans for Nigel and seen “Urgh! A Music War” on ONTV. But, I blanked.
Long story longer, he asks me if I’d like to help the ladies work for a spell. 2 hours later I approach the counter and he offers me a cassette of my choice from his selection of 30 for my labor. I see Fables of the Reconstruction and ask him what he thought of REM. He had such an anglo vibe, if that makes sense, and he answered that they interested him very much and looked to have quite a career ahead of them.
I went back to my life and hotel, inserted that tape, and changed forever. The track Life and How To Live It has always spoke to me. Not only does it remind me of the afternoon when I was actually a cool kid, but it’s about a schizophrenic who had two sets of everything in his house and would simply cross over into the other life whenever he wanted because he built a wall down the middle.
These southern gothic tales added some much to my life.
I love this song. I love this band. Thank you!
My favorite song is “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” because I like Ingrid about whom it was written for and because for the longest time early in their career they would not play it
Pilgrimage. I couldn’t wait to get out of high school.
They definitely remind me of college, when finding out about new music wasn’t as easy as it is now…
I would give my life to find it, I would give it all …
Country Feedback will always be my favorite–haunting, sad, classic. You Are The Everything is another sparse beauty.
I still sing “Superman” at the top of my lungs when I hear it on my radio!
south central rain….one of the first songs i heard from them, and still one of my faves.
Awesome prize pack. My personal favorite is “Leave” off of New Adventures in Hi-Fi. I may be in the minority, but I love that album. I’m still convinced that Automatic for the People is one of the best albums ever recorded.
So many, but probably End of the World, just because I have fond memories of being in high school and playing it over and over and trying to decipher the lyrics. I think with about 8 more years of study I might finally get them all.
When I was in high school, my friends’ band covered “Can’t Get There from Here” at the talent show one year. Still not sure whether this has anything to do with why “Radio Free Europe” & “Nightswimming” are my favorite REM tunes.
“Gardening at Night.” Why? Well, have you ever actually tried it? Doesn’t work.
“Vacation in Athens is calling me….”
Great prize package!!! Seems obvious but I’m going with Radio Free Europe.
Green Grow Where The Rushes Grow mist definitely
Voice of Harold! Discuss :)
Yeah I’d have to agree with everyone who picked Nightswimming, beautiful song off arguably their best record…
Favorite song depends on my mood…If I want something from the latter stuff that’s just big, I’d go with “Leave” from New Adventures in Hi-Fi. If I want something a bit ome agrressive, “Turn Yu Inide Out”. If I want melody, “Fall on Me”.
After asking Kenneth what the frequency was, I listened rapturously to Radio Free Europe.
“What If We Give It Away”. Great melody, and why NOT give it away…to me!
Wolves, Lower, will always be my absolute favorite, because it’s the first song of theirs I remember hearing. However, I have really happy memories of their cover of Pale Blue Eyes, as well as Get Up.
Ooh, I don’t think I can pick one, but here are six of my favorite R.E.M. songs from the ’80’s:
“Gardening at Night,” “Radio Free Europe,” “We Walk,” “Can’t Get There from Here,” “The Flowers of Guatemala,” and “You Are the Everything.”
Looking forward to the set!
My personal sound track in high school and college…love those guys. All down hill after Bill Berry left the band. You never know how important the drummer is until he isn’t.
Top 2 R.E.M. songs are
1. “Nightswimming” – Because I am from the South and every time I hear this song I can feel the humidity being washed away in lapping waves of lake water.
2. “Turn You Inside-Out” – the sexiest warning ever.
Talk About the Passion is the best…cuz I said so!
Brings back some great memories of high school and college.
Can’t pick just one!! Would love to get my hands on the vinyl!!
Loved “Lives Rich Pageant”! Not sure if ‘Fall on Me’ was or wasn’t about acid rain but there sure was a belief it was in my early college years. Plus ‘Superman’ cover just a great Mike vocal. That cover brought a lot of people into REM’s own songs. I say by whatever means necessary to get people to such great music! Love this deal!
I tried to read as many reviews as I could, and it seems that no one on this page has referenced the best all-time R.E.M. song of all: DRIVER 8.
It is one of my all-time favorite R.E.M. songs for many reasons but I picked it for one very personal reason: it is the first song that I figured out by ear, on my own, on guitar when I was 17. It is the song that validated my guitar-playing skills to myself in my youth, and it remains a great go-to riff when I warm up my hands.
Oh yeah, I think anyone who referred to a cover song that R.E.M. played as their favorite should be taken out of consideration for the contest because it shows their lack of faith in the band’s large catalog of original songs.
all songs R.E.M. .got me thru my janitor job at the Funny Bone preggers with my first born as a second job on weekend after I got out of college and was trying to make ends meet with my late husband.
So many! But I have a great memory of hearing “Maps and Legends” on the radio for the first time when I was a teenager.
Lots of favorites but Losing My Religion is one of the best songs ever written.
This would be an awesome prize to win! Here’s my entry! :-)
Half A World Away
‘My shoes are gone,
my life – spent’
“Moral Kiosk” is my favorite but I couldn’t explain why if I tried and am actually becoming irritated at myself for examining the reason at all. I mean, have you read the lyrics? No help there…
The live version of Gardening at night.I always watched 120 minutes,just in case IRS ran some live video footage of an REM performance.First saw them about 1984-5 with the 10,000 Maniacs,a great small show.
Every single song on Murmur.
“it’s the end of the world as we know it” and suprisingly I feel fine!!!
My favorite song is “Perfect Circle” because it has a wistful, twilight quality that perfectly captures what it feels like to stand just over the line between youth and adulthood looking back with longing.
Gardening at Night. But half of eponymous is brilliant stuff.
I tend to like their cover versions like DARK GLOBE & STRANGE … having said I’m thinking MAPS & LEGENDS comes to mind.
Murmur is the best album – not a weak spot on it. 9-9 (the balls out energy!) or Laughing (my favorite part of any REM song ever – when it slows down michael’s beautifuyl voice – ‘In a room, lock the door, latch the room’…drums kick in).
I have always thought it a crime of humanity that “Can’t Get There from Here” wasn’t a hit single.
Perfect Circle. Great, great song.
“Radio Free Europe” always draws me in.
“Gardening at Night” would be my choice cut if I were concerned about credibility. However, if I’m perfectly honest with myself, my favourite R.E.M. song would be “Shiny Happy People”, simply because it is one of the most life-positive pop songs I have ever heard. Hearing it makes me glad to be alive, even when I am really sad.
And the video clip is brilliant! Michael’s dancing is so cute.
Losing My Religion is as relevant for me today as is was back in the day. ” Oh life is bigger Bigger than you and you are not me” & “…every whisper of every waking hour I’m choosing my confessions…” Life is always muddled with crazy obsessions, distractions, and unavoidable responsibilities! Fortunately music helps smooth the ride over unavoidable potholes along the journey! :o)
Camera. Sad, beautiful song that (after it ends and a few seconds pass) breaks into what sounds like some goofing around in the studio. Why do I love the song? Cleanly sums up REM at that point in their career: a band on the verge of big things, capable of crafting hauntingly beautiful, serious songs…but at the end of the day, still a group of friends having fun doing what they love. Awesome.
I can be the winner!?
REM was one of the first bands that I obsessed about as a kid. My favorite song is ‘Wolves, Lower’
Electrolite!
The manual typewriter starting off the drum rhythm on “Exhuming McCarthy” is fantastic. I enjoy it over and over and over. REM has been going for many years, let hope they remain relevant.
I think So. Central Rain is my fave R.E.M. single. It was the first that really hinted they had something beyond the obtuse lyrics and hazy rock songs. That they were capable of writing really catchy melodies that would eventually enthrall the masses.
I think the end of “The One I Love” is one of the best song endings ever. Especially Bill’s perfectly placed drum fill down the toms. It gets me every time. Perfection.
“The End of the World As We Know It” has to be the greatest song of that era of theirs. Or maybe just my recollection of that era.
“Fall on Me” is my personal favorite, so epic.
“Cuyahoga” brings about a wonderment of fantasy-driven material about living in Ohio. I love that.
“I’m the sign and you’re not deaf … set a trap for the big kill, waste of time, sitting still … I can hear you … can you hear me?” Jagged and seeping with frustration and energy, “Sitting Still” hitches along with communication angst. A deaf person struggles to hear and speak, and Stipe’s odd stream of words pulls us along — and WE the listeners are just as confused as the person trying to express himself. Seldom has such an obtuse series of words been used to so effectively in the R.E.M. canon.
there are many to choose from, but if asked to pick just one, I have to go with “Fall On Me”. Mostly for: “what is it up in the air for?… it’s gonna fall if it’s there for long…”
so much great REM material provided the soundtrack to my life but if I had to pick one it would be “Find The River” from REM’s last great release … got me through a tough time in my life and still makes me well up when I hear it
Well, The One I Love, because… It’s the one I love the most! ;)
the flowers of guatemala
Harborcoat cuz Peter Buck’s guitar playing almost puts Johnny Marr to shame
I still love “Rockvilee” and “Pretty Persuasion” like i did the day they came out. Reckoning is dessert island disc for me.
Aw, am I too late? I’d have to say Carnival of Sorts or Cuyahoga, for those scoring at home.
…and the contest is now closed. The winner has been e-mailed. Thank you all so much for entering, and, more importantly, sharing your stories and memories about your favorite R.E.M. songs. It’s been a lot of fun reading each and every entry. Good stuff.
Growing up in Georgia, REM was always talked about. I would stay up late and wait for “Can’t get there from Here”. The video was cheap and looked like a soap opera. The song was AWESOME.Then I heard Begin the Begin on album 88 and the rest is history. To me “Begin the Begin” is the greatest revolution song and one that I am ready to blast on the streets of Washington DC today!
Harborcoat…but honestly there are dozens