It was thirty years ago next month that the album Out of Time by R.E.M. was published. The band itself was at the height of its popularity, having grown beyond their post-punk, indie college appeal into an alternative rock sound that is as distinctive with the Out of Time album as with any they made. Enjoy the ride as we look under the covers today.
Radio Song opens the album and features hip hop artist KRS-One. In a song that sounds unlike anything the band had produced before, the song gets into how the message of music on the radio speaks of sex and violence without giving anything aspirational to get behind.
As if to dash expectations of the sound of the album, grammy award winning song Losing My Religion offers perhaps as distinctly an R.E.M. sound as any song on the album. The song itself gets into themes of losing faith in a person that is the object, even obsession, of an unrequited love that the singer translates into experiencing a loss of faith.
Low follows as an emotional realization that the desired reciprocation of love from Losing My Religion is not meant to be. The narrative perspective attempts to turn a brave face to the coming of age perspective while turning by songs end into a new emotional and tangibly specific wish.
Near Wild Heaven flips the passionate, wishful script of Low, beginning with an imagining of a desired love actually returning with the cool comfort of affirmation. Things quickly flip to doubt, and a request seemingly focused on the singer aiming to convince himself that the one true love that will have his back is himself.
Endgame might not have the popular appeal of other songs from the Out of Time album, yet plays as a lullabye instrumental with minor voicing as an accompaniment to the larger experience. The song is perhaps felt from this perspective.
Shiny Happy People was the second single from Out of Time released in America, after Losing My Religion. Kate Pierson of the B-52s sings on this song, also being featured prominently in the song’s official video. As noted by this Song Facts background piece for Shiny Happy People, this song is meant satirically as a response “two years after the Tiananmen Square uprising when the Chinese government clamped down on student demonstrators, killing hundreds of them.”
Belong is a song about the bond between a mother and son, as explained by Michael Stipe in an interview in Q (a magazine) as referenced here. The song itself is “someone else commenting on the sense that the bond between a mother and child is the most powerful love of all.”
The song Half a World Away resumes to a classical R.E.M. sound in returning to themes of sadness and angst. The self-reflection of burden and loneliness are thematically strong.
Texarkana returns to an uplifting, light sound akin to Shiny Happy People. Thematically the song sings of wistful dreaming towards an aspiration that the singer hopes to have happen to him. That aspiration is a hope for love that ties like a bow to the notion of catching him if he falls. Where might he be falling? My answer is love … the singer wants, hopes, craves falling in love.
Country Feedback by R.E.M. sonically mellows out the spirit of the Out of Time album. The song itself returns to a theme that pervades the album, one of a maddening feedback loop of failed relationship, breakdowns (whether real or imagined), and the notions of turning things into focused hurt or help. There’s a definite somber country feeling to the song itself.
Me in Honey closes the Out of Time album with Kate Pierson again contributing vocals. Micheal Stipe indicates here that this song answers the song Eat For Two by 10,000 Maniacs, both offering a differing perspective on pregnancy. The exploration of feelings in taking stock of an unplanned pregnancy, as Me in Honey does, are definitely revealing of where songwriter Michael Stipe was in the moment.
Matt – Saturday, February 27, 2021
Matt Lynn Digital 