R.E.M. - STAND

Released: January 1989

Charts: US: #6    UK: #48 

R.E.M. released “Stand” in early 1989. Coming off the darker, politically charged Green (1988), “Stand” was a burst of cartoonish sunshine: jangly guitars, sing-along simplicity, and a goofy sense of fun that made it the band’s second Top 10 hit in the US peaking at No. 6. In the UK peaked at No. 48.

On the surface, “Stand” could have been written for a Saturday morning TV show. Its bright major chords, childlike harmonies, and key changes — each chorus rising a full step higher — are pure bubblegum pop. Guitarist Peter Buck even leaned into the silliness, using a newly bought wah-wah pedal to give the song a deliberately “stupid” tone. “We thought it was dumb, so we tried to make it even dumber,” Buck later joked.

But R.E.M. has always excelled at disguising sincerity as irony. Beneath the playful surface, “Stand” delivers a quietly profound message about mindfulness and awareness — about literally and figuratively standing where you are and paying attention. “It’s about making decisions and actually living your life rather than letting it happen,” Michael Stipe explained in 1992. The repetition of lines like “Stand in the place where you live / Now face north” feels absurd until it starts to feel like Zen advice — a pop mantra for the modern day.

The song originated from a riff Buck thought was “too stupid” to use. Stipe responded by writing lyrics to match, embracing the dumbness and turning it into art. That playfulness was key to “Green”, an album where R.E.M. balanced environmental activism and political themes (“Orange Crush”) with a willingness to experiment and, occasionally, poke fun at themselves.

Drummer Bill Berry called the track’s wah-wah solo “the perfect statement” — proof that R.E.M. could make something infectious without losing their irony. It’s a sly nod to the Velvet Underground and The Ramones, two bands R.E.M. admired for making simplicity sound profound.

The music video, directed by Katherine Dieckmann, matched the song’s carefree spirit. Having never directed before, Dieckmann created a collage of vibrant, offbeat imagery — strangers dancing, people recycling, landscapes spinning in surreal loops. It looked cheap, charming, and utterly sincere. Much like the song, it encouraged movement — not just physical, but emotional and intellectual. Stipe’s friendship with Dieckmann shaped the tone: both shared a fascination with visual art and everyday beauty. The result felt refreshingly human, proof that pop could be silly and still say something real.

In the end, “Stand” captures R.E.M. at a crossroads — the moment they stopped worrying about being the smartest band in the room and just decided to dance in it instead. Beneath its shiny surface lies the band’s truest credo: sometimes, the smartest thing you can do is stop thinking and simply stand where you are.

 

R.E.M. - E-BOW THE LETTER

Released: August 19, 1996

Charts: US: #49    UK: #4 

When R.E.M. chose “E-Bow the Letter” as the lead single for “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” in August 1996, it confounded just about everyone. At a time when alternative rock still prized big hooks and louder choruses, the band released a song built from murmurs, drones, and grief — a spoken-word elegy haunted by loss and memory. It was an audacious choice, but a fitting one for a band that had spent over a decade proving they could follow their instincts anywhere, even into silence.

The song’s title refers to the E-Bow, a handheld electronic device that uses a magnetic field to vibrate guitar strings, giving Peter Buck’s playing its eerie, sustained hum. But the real instrument here is Michael Stipe’s voice — subdued, half-whispered, almost afraid to break the fragile stillness. The lyrics unfold like a letter that was written but never sent, widely believed to be addressed to River Phoenix, the late actor and Stipe’s close friend, who died tragically in 1993 at just 23.

“Dreaming of Maria Callas, whoever she is,” Stipe sighs, invoking the legendary opera singer as a symbol of beauty and distance. It’s a line that captures the song’s entire mood: reaching toward something transcendent but out of grasp.

Adding another ghostly dimension is Patti Smith, R.E.M.’s hero and muse, whose backing vocals arrive like a benediction. Smith — the “Godmother of Punk” and one of Stipe’s earliest inspirations — lends the song a sense of holy reverence. Guitarist Peter Buck later described watching her sing as a near-spiritual experience: “Chills ran up and down my spine… it was such an incredible experience watching Patti sing this song — a song we wrote!” Her voice doesn’t compete with Stipe’s but cradles it, as though she’s comforting both the singer and the spirit he’s addressing.

Critics called “E-Bow the Letter” an unlikely single, and they were right. In the United States, it barely cracked the Top 50, peaking at No. 49 on the Billboard Hot 100. But in the United Kingdom, it became R.E.M.’s highest-charting hit to that point, reaching No. 4, proof that sometimes, melancholy travels better overseas.

The music video, directed by Jem Cohen, extends the song’s nocturnal beauty. Filmed partly in Los Angeles and Prague, it features the band performing in a dimly lit room strung with white lights — a kind of modern cathedral. Patti Smith appears separately, filmed in flickering black and white, her image ghosting across the screen like a visitation. 

“E-Bow the Letter” was, in every sense, an act of defiance. It followed not the market but the muse, choosing vulnerability over volume, poetry over power chords. Its quietness was its rebellion. Dedicated to River Phoenix, sung with Patti Smith, and built around an unorthodox drone, it remains one of R.E.M.’s most intimate, unsettling, and enduring songs — a whispered prayer to the past and to the art of holding on. In a decade obsessed with irony and noise, “E-Bow the Letter” dared to be neither. It simply stood still, hummed softly, and let the ghosts sing back.

R.E.M. - THE SIDEWINDER SLEEPS TONIGHT

Released: February 1, 1993

Charts: UK: #17 

Tucked between the meditations on death and memory that define “Automatic for the People”, R.E.M.’s “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” feels like a beam of sunlight breaking through a heavy sky. Released in February 1993 as the album’s third single, it’s one of the strangest “pop” songs to ever slip into the Top 20 — a tumbling, word-drunk burst of playfulness that offers a brief reprieve from Automatic’s pervasive melancholy.

From its opening notes, “Sidewinder” playfully tips its hat to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” The resemblance was so strong that R.E.M. opted to pay for the rights — and even record their own cover for the single’s B-side. Built on jangling guitars and buoyant harmonies, the song sounds almost airborne, carried by Michael Stipe’s gleeful, near-incomprehensible vocal phrasing. “Call me when you try to wake her up,” the song’s real chorus line, famously became one of the most misheard lyrics in British pop history — mistaken by four out of ten listeners for “Calling Jamaica.” Stipe, for his part, took the confusion in stride; after all, ambiguity was part of R.E.M.’s DNA.

The song is a tangle of surreal imagery and domestic minutiae — telephones, cartoons, dreams, and the exhaustion of modern life. “Half of the song is about someone trying to find a place to sleep,” bassist Mike Mills explained. “The other half — you’re on your own.” Stipe himself has said the line “their world has flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream” is one of his personal favorites, likening its imagery to cartoon characters who only rest in dreams.

The song’s recording sessions were lighthearted, and that energy made it onto tape. The laughter that echoes through the chorus isn’t an artistic flourish — it’s Stipe genuinely cracking up after repeatedly mispronouncing “Dr. Seuss” as “Zeus.” Rather than erase the moment, producer Scott Litt kept it in. It’s a rare glimpse of joy captured in real time.

The accompanying Kevin Kerslake-directed video, often mistakenly credited to Peter Care, reflects that loose spontaneity. Stipe wanders through stark rooms lit by flashing lights while his bandmates play in separate spaces, their performances fractured but vibrant — a visual echo of the song’s restless energy.

In hindsight, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” may be R.E.M.’s most necessary contradiction. Coming after the somber weight of “Everybody Hurts” and “Drive,” it offered levity — a wink, a laugh, a breath of relief. Guitarist Peter Buck later admitted the band included it to “break the prevailing mood” of “Automatic for the People”. 

R.E.M. - DAYSLEEPER

Released: October 12, 1998

Charts: US: #57    UK: #6 

Released in October 1998 as the lead single from “Up”, R.E.M.’s first album after the departure of drummer Bill Berry, “Daysleeper” stands as both a bridge to the band’s past and a weary glance into their uncertain future. Amid the experimental textures and electronic pulses of “Up”, this song was the most familiar in tone — melodic, melancholic, and unmistakably human.

The inspiration was deceptively small: Michael Stipe saw a handwritten sign on a New York apartment door reading “Daysleeper.” It sparked a meditation on alienation, work, and the erosion of identity in the 24-hour economy. Stipe imagined a night-shift worker adrift between time zones and deadlines — “an international share trader on the verge of a breakdown.” 

“Daysleeper” is lush yet subdued, guided by Peter Buck’s chiming guitars and a somber, almost hymnlike melody. It evokes the woozy imbalance of sleepless days and artificial light. Buck later reflected that it “perfectly captures that sea-sick feeling you get during daylight when you haven’t slept.”

The accompanying Snorri Brothers video visualizes that unease, placing Stipe in a sterile, fluorescent-lit office — the spiritual successor to the mythic dreamers of “Automatic for the People”, now trapped behind screens and schedules.

 

R.E.M. - LEAVING NEW YORK

Released: September 27, 2004

Charts: UK: #5 

“Leaving New York” was released in September 2004 as the lead single from the album “Around the Sun”. Though it failed to chart in the US, it reached the Top 5 in the UK. 

Written by Michael Stipe aboard a plane flying over the Manhattan skyline, the song captures both the intimacy of personal parting and the weight of collective memory. “On a clear night, the city looks magnificent,” Stipe recalled, describing the moment of inspiration. His lyrics read like fragments of goodbye — half love song, half elegy — to a city he adored and to a world reshaped by the shadow of September 11th. “It’s pulling me apart,” he sings, his voice both resigned and tender, mirroring the disorientation of a nation learning to let go.

“Leaving New York” is one of R.E.M.’s most understated ballads. Peter Buck’s guitar chords twist and turn in unconventional ways — “the chord changes are crazy,” he admitted — but Stipe’s melody smooths their edges into something graceful. The song’s layering of echoing harmonies, particularly the haunting refrain “It’s pulling me apart” woven through the bridge, creates an almost sacred stillness.

In concert, the song evolved: the studio’s looped backing vocals became a live chorus shared among Mike Mills, Scott McCaughey, and Ken Stringfellow. It was a subtle shift, but one that revealed what the song had been all along — a communal expression of loss and renewal.

 KATE BUSH - THE MAN WITH THE CHILD IN HIS EYES

Released: May 26, 1978

Charts:  UK: #6  US: #85 

With “The Man with the Child in His Eyes,” Kate Bush delivered one of the most precociously accomplished songs ever released by a teenage songwriter—an intimate, poetic ballad that would become a defining moment on her 1978 debut album “The Kick Inside”. Though it appeared on her first LP, the track had been recorded three years earlier at the urging and expense of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, who recognized Bush’s talent long before the rest of the world did. Bush was just 16 when she recorded the song, and only 13 when she wrote it—an astonishing fact considering the emotional sophistication at its core.

The song explores a young girl’s bond with an older man, a figure she perceives as both wise and boyishly innocent. Bush later explained that the idea came from observing how men, no matter their age, “are all little boys inside,” preserving a kind of magic that she found both touching and alluring. The track’s delicate piano lines and orchestral swells echo this theme of vulnerability, creating an atmosphere that feels private—as if the listener is overhearing a whispered confession.

Decades after the song’s release, its real-life inspiration emerged: Steve Blacknell, Bush’s first boyfriend. Blacknell recalled being overwhelmed the first time he heard Bush play her songs at the family piano, calling the moment “the day I realised I was in love with a genius.” But as Bush’s career gathered momentum, the relationship drifted. Still, those close to Bush confirmed to Blacknell that he was indeed the man immortalized in the song’s title.

The record struck a powerful chord with listeners, climbing to No. 6 in the UK and earning Bush the 1979 Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding British Lyric. Its mystique was further enhanced by a minimalist music video directed by Keef, in which Bush sits cross-legged on the floor, bathed in a soft pink glow—an approach that stemmed from a spontaneous suggestion by her brother Jay. The simplicity suited the song’s intimacy; as Bush later said, it was meant to feel like a girl quietly sharing her inner thoughts with no one but herself.

KATE BUSH - SAT IN YOUR LAP

Released: June 29, 1981

Charts:  UK: #11 

Kate Bush released “Sat in Your Lap” in June 1981, more than a year ahead of the album “The Dreaming”. Peaking at No. 11 on the UK charts, the single announced Bush’s breakaway from convention and marked the beginning of her stint as full producer of her own work. If her earlier albums hinted at experimentation, “Sat in Your Lap” detonated it.

The song confronts the restless human hunger for knowledge, while simultaneously acknowledging the futility of ever attaining enough of it. Bush casts a wry eye on those who crave wisdom but avoid the work required to earn it; every revelation only exposes a larger ignorance. “When you get over one wall,” she once explained, “you will find an even bigger one.” It’s a philosophical theme—part spiritual, part existential—delivered with ferocious energy.

The track’s creation was directly inspired by a Stevie Wonder concert at Wembley in 1980. Energised by his band’s rhythmic power, Bush went home and began shaping the song the very next day. It started with a Roland rhythm box and a piano riff, with early placeholder lyrics—snippets like “I see the people working” and “I want to be a scholar”—filling in the gaps as she worked out the structure. Those lines eventually became the framework for the track.

Drummer Preston Heyman played a crucial role in forging its distinctive percussive sound. Recording at The Townhouse in 1981, he and Paddy Bush used bamboo garden canes to create the whip-like rhythm that slices through the track. During one take, Heyman became so carried away that he snapped a cane across his knee; the sound, still audible in the final mix, was left in by Bush.

The music video, directed by Brian Wiseman, matched the song’s manic intensity. Shot at Abbey Road Studios, it features Bush performing a puppet-like seated dance, roller skating in circles, and interacting with dancers dressed as clowns, jesters, and bulls. Heyman described the atmosphere as “animalistic” and “tribal,” echoing the ritualistic whip-dance he and Paddy performed during the recording.