The R.E.M. song Michael Stipe called “the greatest piece of music we ever made”
There’s a good chance that Michael Stipe would put 110% into every single experiment that R.E.M worked on. Even though he may have been one of the proudest faces of the alternative movement at the time, not even Stipe could have predicted the trajectory of the group’s career, becoming one of the biggest bands in the world once the grunge movement kicked in during the early 1990s. Although R.E.M was entering its golden age, Stipe would consider one song as their signature tune.
At the same time, the quality of every one of the band’s projects didn’t falter since their debut. In the wake of the overnight success of the album Murmur, the band were working on finetuning their traditional college-rock sound on their following albums. Across records like Fables of the Reconstruction and Document, Stipe struck the perfect balance between the tunefulness of rock and roll’s past while keeping everything else reasonably uncommercial, down to his unintelligible lyrics.
When the band started work on albums like Green, their sound had been going towards pop music, with tracks like ‘Stand’ being one of the most glorious pieces of rock sunshine they had ever made up to that point. Once the group started to make Out of Time, though, every single song on the album came with its own creative risks.
Featuring KRS-One on one of the first tracks, R.E.M wanted to prove that they were not satisfied resting on their laurels, creating tunes indebted to the sounds of pure rock and roll and musical sophistication. Although Stipe was also coming into his own as a lyricist, ‘Losing My Religion’ would stand out to him as one of the band’s finest moments.
This would become one of Stipe’s high points from a lyrical standpoint. Inspired by the creepy tone that The Police hit on when making the track ‘Every Breath You Take’, Stipe wrote an ode to unrequited love, taking the perspective of someone on the outside looking in and wondering if their muse even knows they exist.
When talking about the effect of the song, Stipe remembered that the lyrics were a watershed moment for him, saying, “The thing that for me is the most thrilling is that you don’t ever really know if the person that I’m reaching out for is aware of me. If they even know that I exist. So it’s this really tearful, heartfelt thing that made it’s way into one of the best pieces of music that the band has ever given me”.
Featuring a delicate lead mandolin, most of the song has a sense of refinement throughout its runtime, as if it’s being played in an abandoned synagogue. Although the title came from an American southern expression Stipe had heard growing up, it could easily apply literally, as if this unknown entity is making him lose faith in a life beyond his earthly existence.
While Stipe would take the song to new heights with his vocals, the real power of the song came with the video, showing him dancing in the most natural way he could. It may have seemed strange to those not aware of the band, but this was the first look at Stipe truly letting the music carry him to another place.
