Michael Stipe to Donald Trump, Other Candidates Using Band’s Music: “Go Fuck Yourselves”
I’ve been in the mood for the R.E.M. sound lately for some reason, and right now I’m listening to the Automatic For The People album because I do think it’s their best.
And I just remembered that this was apparently the album Kurt Cobain was listening to before his death. (Courtney apparently found the CD player still on with this album in the changer.) And it just makes me wonder, because the album itself is so sad in actual melody, with most stuff in minor key and sort of mildly slow, but some of the songs are like an attempt to encourage happiness or at least an attempt to encourage searching for happiness, like Everybody Hurts and (to some extent) Monty Got A Raw Deal and Find The River, but then you also have songs like Sweetness Follows and Try Not To Breathe. It makes me wonder if Kurt was trying to pull himself out of whatever sort of desperate mood he was in or if he was listening to it because he felt stuck in that mood and the songs just captured it. Or if he was simply listening to it because he seemed to think of Michael Stipe as a friend (they were discussing doing an album together before he died) and listening to it meant he was hearing the voice of a friend. Or simply because the songs are sort of droning and low so it could be background sound without being overly stimulating or distracting. Or something else entirely.
I don’t know why I started thinking about this. It just makes me wonder, why this album?
This was my favorite album as a teenager for all of the above reasons. I can’t tell you how many times I listened to “Everybody Hurts” to get me through. I loved it even before I heard about the Kurt Cobain connection.
DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS SONG TO SHOW UP ON MY DASH?!?!?!
Rebageling myself so that y’all can have the lyrics if you want to attempt to sing along
attempt being the operative word here
That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane –
Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn –
world serves its own needs, regardless of your own needs. Feed it up a knock,
speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height,
down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for
hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn’t coming in a hurry with the furies
breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered
crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population,
common group, but it’ll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its
own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the
reverent in the right – right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright
light, feeling pretty psyched.It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.Six o’clock – TV hour. Don’t get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn,
return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning,
blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle,
light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh,
this means no fear – cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament,
a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
and I decline.It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite.
Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic,
slam, but neck, right? Right.It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine…fine…(It’s time I had some time alone)
