I was out of town when R.E.M. announced their break-up, so the news didn’t reach me right away. I saw a couple of Facebook friends post R.E.M. songs without any context and thought it an odd coincidence, but I didn’t assume it was pegged to news about the band.
A day later I read a short story about the announcement in USA Today, a rare case (these days) of learning about something for the first time in a newspaper.
My response was not sadness, but a mixture of relief and nostalgia. I imagine most long-term R.E.M. fans had a similar reaction.
Let’s face it… R.E.M.’s best days were behind them. This break-up was an acknowledgement of that, and it allows them to hang up their guitars with their legacy intact. In a sense, this move has been in the works for 15 years and five albums, ever since the original lineup was split by the departure of drummer Bill Berry.
In essence they really broke up then, but now it’s official.
This week I’ll revisit five R.E.M. albums that take me back to five different times in my life. R.E.M. has that time machine effect for me perhaps more than any other artist.
First up is 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction, the first R.E.M. album I heard and still my favorite. I discovered Fables not when it was released but a couple of years later, on a cassette I either purchased or recorded from my sister’s vinyl album.
I have a vivid memory of listening to this album in the basement of my parents’ Virginia house as a sophomore in high school. This opening track, as well as song two, ‘Maps and Legends,’ will forever pin me to that time and place.
I suspect the music of our adolescence will always be the most meaningful in our lives. That’s when we’re most thirsty for meaning and profundity, most open to the transformation great music can inspire. Discovering new music later in life is always a pale reflection of those early experiences.
It was 24 years ago when this teasing guitar line first invaded my brain. It still hasn’t left.
Read the scene where gravity is pulling me around
Peel back the mountains peel back the sky
Stomp gravity into the floor
It’s a Man Ray kind of sky
Let me show you what I can do with it
Time and distance are out of place here
Step up, step up, step up the sky is open-armed
When the light is mine, I felt gravity pull
Somewhere near the end it said
”You can’t do this”, I said ”I can too”
Shift sway rivers shift, oceans fall and mountains drift
It’s a Man Ray kind of sky
Let me show you what I can do with it
Step up, step up, step up the sky is open-armed
When the light is mine, I felt gravity pull onto my eyes,
Holding my head straight (looking down).
This is the easiest task I’ve ever had to do…
I fell asleep and read just about every paragraph
Read the scene where gravity is pulling me around
Shift the swaying river’s shift
Oceans fall and mountains drift
It’s a Man Ray kind of sky
Let me show you what I can do with it
Time and distance are out of place here
Step up, step up, step up the sky is open-armed
When the light is mine, I felt gravity pull onto my eyes,
Holding my head straight (looking down).
This is the easiest task I’ve ever had to do…
Reason had harnessed the tame
Holding the sky in their arms
Gravity pulls me down
Meet Me In Montauk 
Looking forward to a fitting tribute to a great band.
You hit it on the mark that there are few opening notes to an album that immediately take you back to a time and place, in my case, my college apartment in Gainesville.
It will be interesting to see if Stipe does any good solo work following the REM breakup.
I too am looking forward to this week’s music and all of your memories; and also I would like to add that the basement in Virginia was finished and rather nice for you to listen to your music. (Just in case some readers think we banished you to a cold and dark place) 🙂
Peg, that’s so funny.:)
I was author of one of the nostalgic Facebook posts you noticed, so you know all too well how much this group defines my college years. I can’t think of frehsman year without thinking of REM, nor can I think of REM without thinking of freshman year.
Having grown up in a household of Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Carly Simon, and Carole King, and having only pursued the music of the top 40 on my own (and through MTV) throughout my high school years, this was the first time I remember forging an independent musical interest, that went beyond a “single” or the music my family enjoyed.
Listening to this song, and this entire album, was like having a musical epiphany. I can’t overstate the importance this album played in my development – as a listener of music and as a human being. It is that important.