Does Michael Stipe write good lyrics?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

...if so, then what are some examples?

― FreighTrainMan, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:05 (eighteen years ago)

In the Sun single featuring Chris Martin?

blech.

― wesley useche, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:08 (eighteen years ago)

The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite.
Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic,
slam, but neck, right? Right.

[/sarcasm]

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:08 (eighteen years ago)

what's the frequency Kenneth?

― roger whitaker, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:17 (eighteen years ago)

To expand on that a bit - I think Michael Stipe has the same talent for writing that Elvis Costello has - the lyrics don't stand up to much analysis - but they kind of suggest an intelligence at work

― roger whitaker, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:31 (eighteen years ago)

i.e. he has read some books by/about famous people

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:35 (eighteen years ago)

He does draw on some interesting "Southern" sayings from time to time however "loosing my religion", "too far out to sea" "garedening at night" and he can turn an interesting phrase here and there as well...

― FreighTrainMan, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:41 (eighteen years ago)

...and how many teenage kids from the 80s knew what Orange Crush was or what a Hairshirt was before he threw these words into some tunes?

― FreighTrainMan, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:44 (eighteen years ago)

Early lyrics = not really anything you can quote and point to and say "hey, there's some good writing," but they were certainly interesting in context -- I mean, half of the band's early appeal was the odd inscrutability of it all, and the way you could catch interesting phrases in there and not know for sure whether they were images or metaphors or Southern expressions ("Katie bar the kitchen door!"), or whether you were even hearing them right in the first place. It's the same thing Malkmus sounded good doing a decade later, which doesn't look so amazing on paper, but is pretty great when you're enjoying the music and coming across odd phrases that are fun to roll around in your mouth when singing along.

Later lyrics = he turned out some good ones, actually! And usually really well tuned to his delivery -- one of his talents is scripting the stuff so that it really flows like a text, rather than feeling divided up into rigid couplets or whatever. Nothing opens you up for ILX mockery like pointing to printed lyrics and saying "I like these" (do your worst), but rummaging through turns up some really nice things:

1) These clothes don't fit us right
and I'm to blame.

2) Keys cut, three for the price of one.
Nothing's free, but guaranteed for a lifetime's use.
I've changed the locks,
and you can't have one.

3) Eviscerate your memory!

4) The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
turned around backwards so the windshield shows.
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse.

The clothes in (1) are a really perfect shorthand for failure and poverty; (2) is just generally well constructed; (3) I like the way the "eviscerate" turns memory into an act of violence; and with (4) it's nice to see such a concrete, specific image appear in a charting-type single, a form that tends to be pretty low on that kind of thing!

― nabisco, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:56 (eighteen years ago)

Actually what's amazing about the clothes in (1) is that they don't just shorthand poverty and failure, but emphasize the "failure" part by suggesting that things shouldn't be that way, that it's not just deprivation but an ill-fitting, humiliating one.

― nabisco, Thursday, 22 February 2007 03:02 (eighteen years ago)

"one of his talents is scripting the stuff so that it really flows like a text, rather than feeling divided up into rigid couplets"

That's a very on-the-mark observation, which I never really thought about until I read it. I also agree with some of their early appeal was that you couldnt understand what Stipes was mumbling--or at least it created affect that went really well with the music.

― FreighTrainMan, Thursday, 22 February 2007 03:11 (eighteen years ago)

Call me when you try to wake her up, call me when you try to wake her. Call me when you try to wake her up, call me when you try to wake her. Call me when you try to wake her up, call me when you try to wake her. Call me when you try to wake her up, call me when you try to wake her. Call me when you try to wake her up, call me when you try to wake her. Call me when you try to wake her up, call me when you try to wake her.

― King Boy Pato, Thursday, 22 February 2007 03:31 (eighteen years ago)

Oh god, totally forgot about that picture-on-the-dashboard image, that totally rules.

― Mark_R, Thursday, 22 February 2007 03:34 (eighteen years ago)

....
I do not like rem...
Am I evil?

― wesley useche, Thursday, 22 February 2007 03:46 (eighteen years ago)

early Stipe >>>> early Malkmus

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 04:24 (eighteen years ago)

"Voice of Harold," amirite?

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 04:26 (eighteen years ago)

sure he writes good lyrics perefctly suited to his singular singing style the problem starts when frustrated english majors aka rock critics start treating them like poetry i.e.quoting them on the page where of course they sound pretentious and/or silly but that's taking em out of context.

in other words...NABISCO OTM (first time on nu ilx?)

― m coleman, Thursday, 22 February 2007 04:57 (eighteen years ago)

from http://www.ilxor.com:8080/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=56294#unread

first nabisco otm of nu-ilx?

BIG HOOS aka the steendriver on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 9:54 PM (1 hour ago)

HA

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 22 February 2007 04:59 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, Stipe was not doing word poetry as a slacker statement.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 05:06 (eighteen years ago)

THAT'S SUGARCANE THAT TASTED GOOD
THAT'S CINNAMON THAT'S HOLLYWOOD
CMON CMON NO ONE CAN SEE YOU CRY

― the table is the table, Thursday, 22 February 2007 05:10 (eighteen years ago)

I like the way he does the stereotypical tourist lyrics in "Flowers of Guatemala." And "Life and How to Live It" is a good story.

― clotpoll, Thursday, 22 February 2007 07:41 (eighteen years ago)

[i]These rivers of suggestion are driving me away{i/}

― Daniel Giraffe, Thursday, 22 February 2007 08:40 (eighteen years ago)

[Gosh how embarrassing, I messed up the italics thing.]

― Daniel Giraffe, Thursday, 22 February 2007 08:41 (eighteen years ago)

I think he's actually gotten worse since he started printing the lyrics on albums. But then so has the band overall! They're still well constructed but they seem more self-consciously "poetic" which ain't so good. Or maybe it's just that seeing them isolated from the music highlights their weaknesses. The point about the vagueness of the early lyrics is OTM as is the one about how they flow. I also think he has a real knack for striking opening lines:

"Readying to bury your sister and your mother" Sweetness Follows
"I can't say that I love Jesus, that would be a hollow claim" New Test Leper
"What's the frequency Kenneth, is your benzedrine, uh huh?" Kenneth
"That's great it starts with an earthquake!" End of the World
"Monty this seems strange to me, the movies had that movie thing." Monty got a raw deal

The 33 1/3 book has some excellent writing on Murmur's lyrics. Wisely, the autho doesn't try to scan them as "poetry", or make "sense" of them, but talks about their effect and why it doesn't matter that people might hear the lyrics differently because each interpretation is as interesting and unusual as the next. Certain words and phrases stick out and add to the uncanny sense of Southern Gothic and art rock otherness.

His lyric writing, at least in terms of emotional resonance, reached its peak on Automatic. The songs about death are particularly moving and thoughtful. Try Not To Breathe is particularly affecting. An old man commits suicide (because of illness? Depression?) and explains to his family (from beyond the grave? In a suicide letter?) not to be sad, "this decision is mine, I have lived a full life". He even turns it round into something positive as the man expresses his hopes and love for his family. It's a very tricky theme to pull off without becoming mawkish or crassly sentimental, but Stipe nails it beautifully. One of their greatest songs.

― Stew, Thursday, 22 February 2007 11:16 (eighteen years ago)

Stew OTM. Where there was once a vaguely cheerful strain to Stipe's Gothicisms, knowing that these Gothicisms are gonna get printed imposes a literalness that was murder on his sensibilities.

Nabisco OTM upthread too.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 22 February 2007 12:51 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not sure about that, Alfred. I think he was into doing these longer fictional narratives when they started printing all the lyrics (on Up). He seems to me to have moved away from that and I'm not sure what was lost by the printing of the lyrics on, say, the last album. (And now someone can make a joke that there was nothing to be lost because the album was so horrible or something.)

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 16:26 (eighteen years ago)

And then you can defend it!

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 22 February 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

Yes and no...

On paper, he's not much of a writer. He turns a nice phrase every now and then, but his most vivid and memorable lyrics are usually self-consciously "poetic" in a naive sort of way. They can be appealing and even elegant, but there's something a bit precious about them:

"Feathers hit the ground before the weight can leave the air"

It sound fine, and the idea is nice, but it's just a start. And he never manages to sustain that level of craft through a whole song:

"There's a problem, feathers iron
Bargain buildings, weights and pulleys
Feathers hit the ground before the weight can leave the air
Buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky and tell the sky"

The one nice line gets swallowed up in simplistic singsong gobbledygook. Same is true of pretty much everything mentioned so far on this thread. You can isolate remarkable bits and pieces, but the complete text is nearly unreadable. Still, in some ways, that's to Stipe's credit. He's not writing to be read; he's writing songs. And his "simplistic singsong gobbledygook" is often evocative and even beautiful in its proper (sung) context. "Fall On Me", "Orange Crush", "Nightswimming" and "E-Bow The Letter" come to mind. They don't work on paper, but they're quite evocative and even beautiful as music-incorporating-words.

That's why it's kind of unfair to pull out the short but extraordinarily well-written section of "Nightswimming" that nabisco quoted above. It's great, but it's an anomaly. It isn't what Stipe does. He's almost never so concrete, succinct and craftsmanlike. He's a damn fine creator of word-sequences for his own voice, but he isn't a writer in that (literary) sense.

That said, he's at his best when he keeps it simple. My favorite REM lyric:

"This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
A simple prop to occupy my time
This one goes out to the one I love"

So brutal, subtle and cold. That it's unfussy and devoid of obvious poetic ambition only makes it cut deeper.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 17:55 (eighteen years ago)

Umm, embarassing cut-and-paste repetition of "evocative and even beautiful" in above paragraph, highlighting the less than evocative and beautiful qualities of the phrase.

C'est la guerre...

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

it's kind of unfair to pull out the short but extraordinarily well-written section of "Nightswimming" that nabisco quoted above. It's great, but it's an anomaly. It isn't what Stipe does.

I think that's a generalization. He has plenty of passages that are as lucid as that one.

I also kind of hate that when people don't like someone's artistic ambition they describe it as "self-conscious" and when they do like it, they don't.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 18:04 (eighteen years ago)

Stipe has a few similarly lucid, complex, well-crafted passges, but they're extremely rare in his writing. You have to work hard to dig them out. The vast bulk of his lyric writing is scattershot, impressionistic, awkward on paper.

By "self-conscious", I mean Stipe is often trying a little too hard to write poetry. At least it seems that way to me. Perceived self-consciousness is chimerical, of course, and if you don't get that impression, then there's little more to say on the subject. I do, and it colors my appreciation of his work...

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

Sweetness Follows and New Test Leper are among his best moments lyrically. New Test Leper always used to make me smile when I was briefly obsessd with REM in 10th-11th grade.

Otherwise, kinda shit city-- too poetically struggling to be good.

― the table is the table, Thursday, 22 February 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

That "Fall on Me" lyrics is actually a great example of what I meant about scripting and rhythm: the hardcore enjambment in in the first line is what sets the tone for the whole thing.

There's a problem. Feathers iron...

Especially since the melody is divided up into repeating units the way it is, cycling the same way in these continuous, rambling sets. So you get those four list-like items -- "there's a problem / feathers iron / bargain buildings / weights and pulleys" -- and then the first extended full thought is the line that spirals out of that framework and runs way up the scale, the focus-point line that P.P. is saying sounds so nice.

So I guess I'm not sure why we'd bother saying "oh well it doesn't look good on paper, it's not good writing" -- the guy's a singer/lyricist, and the way these things operate in song is probably the important part.

― nabisco, Thursday, 22 February 2007 18:21 (eighteen years ago)

My problem with the "There's a problem / feathers iron" isn't that fails to function musically. In fact, as you point out, it works quite well. My problem is that while the building thought-swarm that Stipe pulls his one clear line out of is functional, it's also more than a little lazy. It suggests the idea without really nailing it. While his voice and phrasing make the lyrics work, they don't say anything particularly interesting, and they don't say it in a particularly interesting way. Worse yet, the "buy the sky and sell the sky" chorus is just a cop out. Once he's delivered the bit about the way the air holds the feather's weight after the feather itself has hit the ground, the buying-selling bit is a letdown. As thinking, I mean.

The whole thing still works, of course. The ecstatic lift acheived when the chorus kicks in is incredible, and the lyrics certainly contribute to that. But if we're talking about the musical/emotional effects that songs acheive, then we have to address lyrics very differently. The earlier piece you quoted, nabs -- the literary bit about the reflection of the inverted photograph on the windshield -- it doesn't support or enable a purely musical triumph of any similar sort. It's just a nice, poetic piece of description delivered quietly in the verse. It's "words on paper" writing of the purest sort. This isnt' a fish-or-fowl discussion. Lyric writing is both a literary and a musical act. The lyrics in "Fall On Me" are musically effective, but often awkward as language.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 18:38 (eighteen years ago)

i'm sick of stipe hating.

he's a genuine kook. good for him.

― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 22 February 2007 18:40 (eighteen years ago)

Big kooky points for Stipe.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 18:42 (eighteen years ago)

The lyrics in "Fall On Me" are musically effective, but often awkward as language.

i don't necessarily agree that they are awkward as language, but in any case the "musically effective" part is a million times more important.

― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 22 February 2007 18:49 (eighteen years ago)

Agreed. But when we say, "it's a wonderful piece of music, and the vocals contribute to that, so the lyrics must be good," we've kinda castrated any discussion of the lyrics as writing.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 19:04 (eighteen years ago)

Did anyone say that?

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 19:09 (eighteen years ago)

By "self-conscious", I mean Stipe is often trying a little too hard to write poetry. At least it seems that way to me. Perceived self-consciousness is chimerical, of course

I would say that it often strikes me as more of a presumption. The implication is that the artist is straining and uncomfortable.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 19:15 (eighteen years ago)

Umm no, that doesn't make any sense at all, and it's not what anyone here is saying, anyway. The point is that words are written for specific purposes and contexts, and song lyrics are written for the context of a vocal performance: the measure of how good they are is probably more about how well they function in that context, and less about how good they look on a page. That doesn't in the least castrate discussion of the writing -- it just means discussing how well they're been written for their intended purpose.

Similarly, a lot of beautifully written plays would make awful films, but that's not a very good criticism of them: they're supposed to be good plays, not films!

― nabisco, Thursday, 22 February 2007 19:16 (eighteen years ago)

this thread will have to get bound with the old natalie merchant lyrics thread at some point...

one of problems with M. Stipe is that often the power of the song (especially his melody and performance) can make a mediocre or even posieish lyric sound poignant. Wendle Gee is a case in point:

If the wind were colors
And if the air could speak
Then whistle as the wind blows
Whistle as the wind blows

thats not great writing. it doesnt even have the rhythmic attributes discussed in other comments, but somehow it works. The lyrics to "Everybody Hurts" are crass. "Nightswimming" has as much cheap sentimentality as it does good phrases, but within the context of the song those weaknesses are mute. As a lyricist well versed in the power his group can conjur, he does all right.

I'll go along with everybody about the mumbled years. Not only gothicisms, but also plenty of gothic tricks. he is very effective with using slight phrases to produce mood. to color. and that ability shouldnt be overlooked

― bb, Thursday, 22 February 2007 19:27 (eighteen years ago)

Get your point, Nabisco, but all the lyrics quoted up to the point that I posted are old-fashioned, words-on-paper, "good writing". They're literary. Poetic. Tradition-bound and workshop-y. They may or may not work well in song context, but they certainly do read marvelously.

The chunk of "Nightswimming" you quoted earlier is a perfect example of this. This passage sounds fine a vocal performance in the song, but isn't at all remarkable in that sense. If it's remarkable in any sense at all, it's remarkable as words-on-paper writing. I hope I'm not totally off-base in suggesting that that's the context in which rock lyrics are usually evaluated by critics for "quality". That's the context in which we celebrate Dylan and dude from The Hold Steady (if we do celebrate them, that is).

So, I think it's appropriate to point out that Stipe just isn't a particularly strong writer in that sense. In fact, he's often bordering on flat-out bad. I grant that he's awful damn good at arranging words in sequences that will sound compelling when he sings them, but that's a very different way to examine lyrical quality. No worse, just different. In that sense, a lot of his "best" lyrics are among his most superficial and awkward. Not the literary stuff quoted above, but (say) the chorus from "Orange Crush".

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 19:43 (eighteen years ago)

And what bb said.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 19:45 (eighteen years ago)

Well this is interesting! My way of judging lyric quality has always and forever been about how well they function as song lyrics, not so much how they'd rate if we pretended they were poems -- I'd be totally fascinated to learn that other people were honestly doing something different! I'm not entirely convinced they do, though: lots of people seem to agree that there's something extraordinary about Morrissey's lyrics. And while a lot of Morrissey's lyrics look okay on paper, there are plenty that don't, and still shine on record.

Anyway, I guess it's not always the most pressing distinction. Play a guitar solo without the other instruments around it, and we can still tell a lot about whether it's good or not. But there are going to be cases where adding the other instruments back in is necessary to make sense of what the solo is doing, you know? And there's so much about song lyrics -- especially in terms of meter, which is of HUGE importance here -- that you can't make sense of without hearing them in their time-based context.

― nabisco, Thursday, 22 February 2007 19:59 (eighteen years ago)

The early lyrics have always struck me as modernist abstraction - language poetry. bb, when you say those "Wendell Gee" lyrics are "not great writing," I wonder about the criterion for that assessment and why Stipe (as opposed to certain others) is vulnerable to the criticism.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:03 (eighteen years ago)

"And there's so much about song lyrics -- especially in terms of meter, which is of HUGE importance here -- that you can't make sense of without hearing them in their time-based context."
-- nabisco

I know, and I agree. A lot of my favorite lyrics are trite, ludicrously obvious, boneheaded crap when reduced to words on paper. And I still stand by them. But, for the most part, the lyrics that I'd say that about are self-aware in their triteness, their boneheadedness. I find nothing in writing/thinking less pleasant than half-baked striving for deep meaning that seems unaware of its own half-baked strivingness. A lot of what I object to in Stipe's writing is it's wearyingly earnest obliviousness.

Still, I agree that good music justifies its component parts. Not that Night Ranger were striving for any kind of deep meaning, but in "Sister Christian", when the chorus kick in, "MOTORIN'!!! What's your price for flight? For finding mister right? I'll be with you tonight..." the emotional/musical payoff is huge. You soar right off with them into that meatball fantasy hell (tons of folks did, anyway). 'Course, the lyrics are fucking retarded, but that retardation doesn't prevent them from working like a goddam charm. So, does that mean that they're actually great lyrics in disguise? Well, yes, I suppose there's a case to be made there... But no. Just NO.

See, Morissey's lyrics may gain a LOT from the way they're employed musically, in the Night Rangerian sense, but they tend to read pretty damn well, too. They're not pure poetry, but they're often smart, tightly-composed, ironically complex, funny and moving. While they clearly lack something when approached naked, they still communicate their better qualities fairly well. (P.S. I hate the Smiths.)

Same can't be said of most of Stipe's lyrics. Whatever weaknesses we find in Natalie Merchant, we find in Stipe. He's vague, lazy, politically obvious, humorless, and seems rarely to have more than one layer of perspective in play. He may turn a nice phrase here and there, but he's also capable of chemically toxic atrocities like "Everybody Hurts".

As for the mock-surprise at the idea that folks sometimes evaluate lyrics as poetry, Bob Dylan to thread.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:24 (eighteen years ago)

I always do this, but I never understand the impulse to call this guy humorless:

http://www.linternaute.com/musique/diaporama-image/live-8/image/7-michael-stipe.jpg

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

My favorite Stipe lyric is "Low Desert." He's at his best when simply describing things with that lopsided vocabulary of his ("All the ashtray cities and freeway drives / Broken casino and waterslide").

― Erroneous Botch, Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:42 (eighteen years ago)

Amusing public figure. Humorless writer. Super brief fragment quoted above is nice-ish.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:55 (eighteen years ago)

But singing "Everybody Hurts" when you look like that creates a certain context.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 20:59 (eighteen years ago)

That's a damn good point. Are you saying that "Everybody Hurts" is a cynical goof, and I've been failing to get it all these years? The gut-wrenching video (which I've seen only once) is supposed to be comically Creed-like?

It seems so outrageously implausible that now I want it to be true.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

Super brief fragment quoted above is nice-ish

Would you rather I quote the entire song?!

― Erroneous Botch, Thursday, 22 February 2007 21:24 (eighteen years ago)

No, I don't think it's cynical at all and I wouldn't characterize it as a "goof," but I definitely think there's an element of goof-iness there. Not so much in the content of that song (as with, say, "Shiny Happy People"), but in the context of putting this sort of blatant thing out as an art statement.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 21:35 (eighteen years ago)

Nah, that's okay. "Low Desert" has nice, oblique imagery throughout, and the tone of resigned apathy is handled well. It's solid, but like Stipe's lyrics in general, I guess it's just not my cup of tea.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 21:39 (eighteen years ago)

Previous post in response to Botch. Really miss that new post checker...

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 21:41 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, come on, Stipe wasn't goofing in a "Stand"/"Shiny Happy People" manner when he wrote, "Sometimes everything is wrong/Now it's time to sing along?"

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 22:10 (eighteen years ago)

Well, "Stand" and "Shiny Happy People" are intentionally goofy in different ways, but point taken. I dunno. Guess I'll have to listen to "Everybody Hurts" again (jeezis help me). Not optimistic about new comedy revelations, but I am dedicated to my work...

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 22:15 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not saying it's incredibly comedic, but you said "humorless."

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 22:20 (eighteen years ago)

No, no, I gotcha. No clarification necessary. I meant relatively humorless. Not that Stipe's lyrics are a zero-kelvin wasteland where even the slightest trace of humor is mercilessly eradicated...

Just listened to "Everybody Hurts", by the way. The admittedly snide-sounding line you mentioned nothwithstanding, I'm still reading it as sincere and sincerely nauseating.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 22:27 (eighteen years ago)

Would've been better with Billy Sherrill producing.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 22 February 2007 22:54 (eighteen years ago)

"Gut-wrenching video" versus "abridged version of Wim Wenders film"

(Actually it's pretty well-intended, and not really that maudlin, given the kind of communal "take heart" moral in the song and especially the video -- though I do think it's amusing how the average teenager will interpret this as "see, world, I HAVE EMOTIONS TOO" rather than, for instance, "see, teenager, YOUR PARENTS AND TEACHERS HAVE EMOTIONS TOO.")

― nabisco, Thursday, 22 February 2007 23:14 (eighteen years ago)

You mean Paris, Texas, or Wings of Desire? Oh, wait, I geddit. You're talking about Kings of the Road.

― Pye Poudre, Thursday, 22 February 2007 23:39 (eighteen years ago)

(I actually think Morrissey has some lyrics that work better on paper than on record, e.g. "Late Night, Maudlin Street.")

― Sundar, Friday, 23 February 2007 00:22 (eighteen years ago)

BTW I never thought much about that "photograph on the dashboard" thing before - It looks a hell of a lot like something out of a Douglas Coupland book written out like that! That's not a criticism per se.

PP, I'm not sure I get what you're saying. If good music justifies its component parts, then why aren't the "Sister Christian" lyrics good lyrics?

― Sundar, Friday, 23 February 2007 00:26 (eighteen years ago)

I certainly found his fragmented, half-remembered dream, meandering style in the mid-80s more to my taste than his later stuff, although, as commented upthread, 'Try Not To Breathe' is a very affecting lyric.

― Daniel Giraffe, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:30 (eighteen years ago)

"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"

quite apart from the fact that this works as an REM lyric, it also sounds nice in my head when I read it.

― Daniel Giraffe, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:36 (eighteen years ago)

sorry was called away and only now getting back to this...

but to respond to tim above:

The early lyrics have always struck me as modernist abstraction - language poetry. bb, when you say those "Wendell Gee" lyrics are "not great writing," I wonder about the criterion for that assessment and why Stipe (as opposed to certain others) is vulnerable to the criticism.

1. i think thats fair...i think he was definately employing concrete poetry and sound poetry "art-school" gags to find a voice early on...and it all makes good sense that way. i also think it was effective in voiceing or coloring a certain feeling or "space"...

2. the "wendell gee" lyrics aren't bad in anyway, they just arent great. what they do do, especially when considered as performed and as a voice (if a voice carrying pretty clear meaning), works rather well. but as a few words in a line, its pretty so-so.

3.but, since you bring it up...im also wondering about my criteria. i fear its one of those "i know it when i see it" and its also a personal bias. "great writing" not only acts immediately to perfectly capture an idea, but also explodes a handful of new ideas. ha, thats utter horseshit and basically meaningless, but i think it is primarily what i look for.

4. well, right now stipe has been thrown up on the table to be jabbed at. i still like the guy. rem, in general dont mean what they did when i was 13, but i still think their material holds up. and if mr. stipe was utter crap we wouldnt be bothered tlaking about it. he probably becomes the target for arrows so often because he was/is rather oblique, yet strangely engaging and fascinating, because he could definately turn a line better than most durring the rise, and puts himself on the line pretty regularly.

two things i was thinking about last nihgt:

1. stipe used to say that he always did the vocal/words last when rem were writing. that might exlain his great sense of working rhythm into the words. i wonder if he still works that way

2. how do we factor the fact that he can never remember his own lyrics into the questioning here

(sadly now must run again ... sory to be brief and not very pointed and to bring up questions and run..but its one of those days...too circusy here to think)

― bb, Friday, 23 February 2007 16:58 (eighteen years ago)

After turning this over for a while, I'm less willing to discuss Stipe's writing so cavalierly. In characterizing the "Wendell Gee" lyrics, bb nails the reaction I was describing (as my own) yesterday: not "bad in any way, just [not] great. What they do, especially [in musical context], works rather well. But as a few words in a line, it's rather so-so."

That feels right, but it undervalues the quiet, unshowy beauty of the lyrics from "Feeling Gravity's Pull" that Mr. Giraffe posted a few hours ago. Stipe often writes quite well in that allusive, lucid-dreamy, hippieish (but incisive) manner. And the style is very well suited both to his singing and to the sound of the band in general.

Personally, I think he prizes vague loveliness -- sometimes verging into outright sentimentality -- over anything meaninful or challenging, and that he rarely pushes his abstract musings to the point where they might get any real poetic/intellectual traction, but he's hardly the worst rock lyricist out there. My objections spring solely from my subjective literary tastes. Ultimately, he's okay, just not my thing.

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 23 February 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

but didn't Bill Berry write "Everybody Hurts," though?

― Alex in Baltimore, Friday, 23 February 2007 18:50 (eighteen years ago)

hahaha..i read that as "but didn't barry whilet write 'everybody hurts', though"....

stipe: better than marc bolan, worse than dylan...

for what its worth.

this thread, and lord knows how i even got into it, has got me wondering what it is that the young me saw in michael stipe. say what we may, the man has (had) the ability to cause countless (young) folks to find something of themselves, if not a meloncholy home, in his lyrical output.

― bb, Friday, 23 February 2007 18:55 (eighteen years ago)

I've always thought Stipe wrote the lyrics. Not sure where that idea came from in the first place -- probably an unthinking assumption based on the fact that he writes almost of all of the lyrics, and I've never heard anyone claim otherwise. Until now, that is...

AllMusic's "Thomas Ward" seems to back me up, but he's so horrifyingly gooed-out on the song that I don't wanna take anything he says seriously. Anyway, if Bill really is responsible for this, it reduced my dislike of Writer-Stipe by at least 50%.

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 23 February 2007 18:58 (eighteen years ago)

better than marc bolan

bb, have you heard Unicorn? I mean, I like Marc Bolan a lot in general, but...

― Tim Ellison, Friday, 23 February 2007 18:58 (eighteen years ago)

oh, i was kidding around. tim. theres no reason at all to bring bolan into this other than the cardboard over-sleeve of the prophets... reissue is tacked up next to my printer...

― bb, Friday, 23 February 2007 19:16 (eighteen years ago)

Not sure if this should be saved for another thread, but does anyone look at rap lyrics as poetry? Since it is (I think) less dependent on the backing music, and there's (usually) a discernible meter going on, so it should scan easily compared to reading pop lyrics on paper.

― Viz, Friday, 23 February 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

"3) Eviscerate your memory!"

michael stipe only hangs out with 60 nightelf rogues.

― davie, Saturday, 24 February 2007 21:09 (eighteen years ago)

i]Not sure if this should be saved for another thread, but does anyone look at rap lyrics as poetry? [/i]

I don't regard any lyrics as poetry.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 24 February 2007 21:39 (eighteen years ago)

I regard lyrics as pottery.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 24 February 2007 22:00 (eighteen years ago)

Alfred is disagreeing with Orpheus!

― Tim Ellison, Saturday, 24 February 2007 22:05 (eighteen years ago)

Ire guard lyric sass Poe try.

― max, Saturday, 24 February 2007 22:06 (eighteen years ago)

You are on the drugs, Max.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 24 February 2007 22:07 (eighteen years ago)

youre just not interpreting my lyrics right

― max, Saturday, 24 February 2007 22:39 (eighteen years ago)

I regard lyrics as pottery.
Ire guard lyric sass Poe try.

M. Doughty to thread.

― Doctor Casino, Sunday, 25 February 2007 00:02 (eighteen years ago)

four months pass...

Pee Wee gathered up his proofread stuff

― Tim Ellison, Sunday, 22 July 2007 02:29 (eighteen years ago)

exactly how many herbs and plants are namechecked in "Find the River"? seconal, astroglide, screw all that.

― wanko ergo sum, Sunday, 22 July 2007 02:34 (eighteen years ago)

Seconal and Astroglide could only be very, very loosely described as "herbs".

You must mean all that bergamot and vetiver stuff, surely.

― Lostandfound, Sunday, 22 July 2007 07:43 (eighteen years ago)

Actually, this was a good discussion at one point.

― Lostandfound, Sunday, 22 July 2007 07:44 (eighteen years ago)

I wish I'd been checking the boards then.

― Lostandfound, Sunday, 22 July 2007 07:45 (eighteen years ago)

he began to rely on these cutesy imagistic words somewhere in the early-mid 90s, right about the time I stopped listening.

― wanko ergo sum, Sunday, 22 July 2007 07:49 (eighteen years ago)

I love cutesy imagistic 90s wor(l)ds, but I also love gritty concrete anytime realism (as well as surreal gut-checking haunted politico asinine impressionism, natch), so there is no R.E.M. period that could possibly ever fucking lose me.

And that's really all I have to say about that.

― Lostandfound, Sunday, 22 July 2007 08:02 (eighteen years ago)

Is there some well-known incident involving Fred Blassie that explains the "Mister Fred Blassie in a breakfast mess" line?

― Tim Ellison, Sunday, 22 July 2007 22:16 (eighteen years ago)

i always wondered about that line, too.

― the table is the table, Sunday, 22 July 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

Classy Freddie Blassie made a movie with Andy Kaufman back in 83, My Breakfast With Blassie. That's what that pencil-necked geek Michael Stipe is talking about.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085979/

― kornrulez6969, Monday, 23 July 2007 00:38 (eighteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.