45 years later and Michael Stipe still doesn’t know why REM’s ‘Radio Free Europe’ is genius
We now look back at the discography of REM, and understand how much of a massive, influential band they have been; however, that didn’t come easily.
When the band were initially touring before the release of their debut record, they were limited in where they could go because of how tight money was. They weren’t making any profit on their gigs, and didn’t have any actual records out, so any money they made went towards food and petrol, which could only get you so far.
“Most fans may not realise that for two years before Murmur was released, we barely made financial ends meet by playing tiny clubs around the southeast,” said the band’s drummer, Bill Berry, “Our gasoline budget prevented us from venturing further.”
Because the band managed to get some plays on college radio and steadily started building a fanbase, the money they were bringing in began to increase. It wasn’t by a great deal, but it was enough for them to officially start recording some songs. While it was very exciting for each band member to be working on original material, they knew the pressure was on to deliver so that they could move on to other venues.
The issue was that the band didn’t know what kind of sound they wanted to officially home in on. When they were writing songs, they were agreeing with every single idea that people were putting forward, and hoping that eventually something would stick. Michael Stipe’s vocal offering was haphazard, and there was no linear approach to writing present. A lot of what they wound up making never saw the light of day; however, in the midst of this agreeable approach to music, some flickers of genius came about.
“We were all so scared of what the other one would say, that everyone nodded their head in agreement to anything to come up,” said Stipe, “The earlier songs were incredibly fundamental, real simple, songs that you could write in five minutes. Most of them didn’t have any words. I just got up and howled and hollered a lot.”
When a song had potential, that was when Michael Stipe decided it was time to start putting lyrics to it. One of their tracks that the band knew would go somewhere was what wound up being their first ever single, ‘Radio Free Europe’. Stipe wrote some words about the radio station which broadcasted from the US to Europe and the Middle East, centring the song around how entertainment can quickly become propaganda.
The words were good, but the real standout was Michael Stipe’s vocal inflexions. The way that he harmonises throughout the song is well and truly a sight to behold. What makes it even more impressive is the fact that Stipe didn’t remotely intend on doing such a thing. He was just singing normally, and wound up delivering a performance that many hailed as genius. To this day, 45 years after the song was originally released, the REM singer still doesn’t have a clue what he did.
“The guys always said I do something harmonically here that made them all go ‘Whoa’, because it was so advanced…or something,” he said, “In the ‘straight off the boat’ part, I wonder if I tricked them by accident? I still have no idea what it is they’re talking about.”
