Ever since 1987, we have been singing R.E.M.’s It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). And Michael Stipe just told us we have not been singing all the lyrics as written by him, and his bandmates, Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills.
It is not, “Team by team reporters, baffled, trump, tethered, crop, Look at that low plane, fine, then.” Instead, he says it’s, “Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped, Look at that low playing, fine, then.”
The other line he corrected is, “Left her, wasn’t coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck.” It is actually, “Left of west and coming in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck.”
So, which way have you been singing those two lines?
R.E.M. was inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame yesterday, and all four founding members were there to accept the honor.
If you are going to have Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Bill Berry, and Peter Buck in the room together, then we better hear them perform. And that is what they did. The band, who disbanded in 2011, sang their hit Losing My Religion.
It was the first time they publically played together since 2007. That reunion performance with Berry was for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
We are running out of inductions to trick them into performing, so we are going to need a tactic to get them to perform more often, even though they told CBS Mornings that those days are over.
I don’t know why they are. Stipe’s voice is still as haunting as ever,` and the band still sounds great. So why not hit the road to delight us? I bet it would do the same for them.
And as a side note, am I the only one who wishes they had done a different song? Losing My Religion is one of my least favorite songs from them, and it is all about me wanting to hear them sing Stand.
The four founding members of R.E.M., Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Bill Berry, and Peter Buck, have not sat together for an interview in almost 30 years. However, in honor of being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame tonight, they agreed to talk to CBS Morning’s Anthony Mason.
They talked about forming the band in 1980 at the University of Georgia. The good times together on the road and making music.
Bill Berry teared up when he talked about leaving the band after suffering two brain aneurysms on stage in 1995.
Finally, they discussed their 2011 split. And where they stand today as friends.
With that, Mason finally asked the question we all wanted to know: What would it take to get them back together? Mills said, “A comet!” Berry added, “Superglue.” But it was Buck who gave the real reason why it will never happen: “It’d never be as good.”
And to that, I say, how do you know? If The Police who hate each other can do it, why can’t you try? The fans would be shiny, happy people if you did! I would love it. And it is all about me because I don’t want to think it’s the end of R.E.M. as we know it.
If you thought that Dolly Parton’s Rockstar album was going to be the most interesting album with covers this year, you were wrong.
That is because The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz is releasing a record full of R.E.M. covers, including Shiny Happy People.
The sole survivor of The Monkees met up with R.E.M’s Michael Stipe, Pete Buck, and Bill Berry before his record release party. And we got this picture!
Maybe R.E.M. will consider using Dolenz as their fourth member and get back together. How groovy would that be?
Do you remember the first time that you heard REM’s Everybody Hurts? It made you cry as it does every other time you listened to the melancholy tune. I guess Michael Stipe just played it for himself because look at how sad his face is in this photo. Forget Sad Keanu Reeves, this is the saddest looking celebrity out there.
I am going cry just looking at him and I am didn’t even press play yet on Everybody Hurts.
