Uncovering the “brutal” truth behind R.E.M. song ‘The One I Love’
It often seems as though the moment a song is released, it is no longer the property of the songwriter. That’s the funny thing about music: as soon as it’s complete, stamped and sealed, it belongs to the audience. It is they, after all, who determine its value and its meaning. That’s not to say they’re always correct in their evaluation, though, as R.E.M discovered first-hand.
Blending a garage band ethos with hooky riffs and cryptic lyrics, R.E.M were one of the most revered bands of the post-punk era. The band’s career began in the early 1980s when their first single, ‘Radio Free Europe’, sparked a DIY revivalist movement in the underground rock scene. Over the next two decades, Michael Stipe and the group perfected their unique blend of alt-rock, inspiring countless bands along the way.
Of all their classic recordings, one of the most beloved is ‘The One I Love’, which features that iconic line: “This one goes out to the one I love / This one goes out to the one I’ve left behind”. With an opening salvo like that, you can understand why many fans have mistaken ‘The One I Love’ for a love song.
When R.E.M premiered the top ten single live in concert, the band noticed the audience lifting lighters into the air and holding their loved ones unusually close. Guitarist Peter Buck was baffled: “I’d look into the audience and there would be couples kissing,” he later recalled. “Yet the verse is … savagely anti-love … People told me that was ‘their song.’ That was your song?”
On closer inspection, ‘The One I Love’ does simmer with a certain cynicism. Take Michael Stipe’s description of romance as a “crutch to occupy my time”, for example. If you’re looking for confirmation of the transformative power of love, you’ll struggle to find it here; ‘The One I Love’ is clearly the work of someone who uses people over and over again.
Michael Stipe echoed this sentiment in a 1992 interview with Q Magazine, in which he confessed that he very nearly didn’t record the song, having come to view it as “really violent and awful” and just “too brutal”.
Eventually, after years of trying and failing to explain the true meaning of ‘The One I Love’, Stipe gave up and accepted its fate. “It’s probably better that they think it’s a love song at this point,” he concluded.
You can revisit ‘The One I Love’ below.
