39

Superman
R.E.M.
1993

Fresh off the heels of throwing you an obscure Bob Dylan song last week, it’s time for one of the most obscure R.E.M. songs ever!  Let’s set the stage for this one a bit.  Freshman year of college, a few doors down from me are cousins Rob and Joe from Phoenix (well, Mesa and Glendale, to be precise.  Mountain View and Apollo High Schools.  That’s how well I know these besties.) And they have this ginormous poster of R.E.M.’s Monster.  I mean, I liked R.E.M., but here I was in the presence of some super fans.

And so it was I discovered this little ditty while cruising around with Joe in his little blue car.  I had never even heard of Life’s Rich Pageant, the album on which this song is the final track.  It wasn’t until many, many years later that I learned that this was/is not even an R.E.M. original and that it’s a cover of a 1969 song by some band called The Clique.  And it wasn’t even until writing this little vignette that I learned that it’s not even sung by Michael Stipe!  (Guitarist Mike Mills took the honors on this one.) But I love this song, despite its obscurity, and not only for the memories associated with it.  It’s just a *fun* song.  We have a random Japanese Godzilla clip at the beginning.  We have some very cool harmonies. And my absolute favorite part is the little guitar and drum bridge between the second and final verses of the song.

This was not an easy decision to make.  I would venture to say that R.E.M. is one of the most underrated bands of all time.  So many great songs:  Everybody Hurts (love this one), Fall on Me (same), Orange Crush (yep), The End of the World As We Know It (fun), Losing My Religion (sure).  And I very nearly chose Nightswimming instead of this one — if you aren’t familiar with the last song on Automatic For the People, repent and listen to it now.  So, so good.

But my current R.E.M. fave?  That would go to another obscure track, Strange Currencies, off of….bringing this full circle….Monster.  I don’t really remember this one from back in the day at all.  But as I told y’all previously, I recently became obsessed with the FX show, The Bear.  My buddy Andy — whose wife was a lead writer on my all time favorite show, Breaking Bad (so he/they know something about good television!) — turned me on to this show, and the second season features Strange Currencies throughout as a motif of sorts.  Here, take a watch/listen.  This is the song I’m listening to on repeat right now.  But Superman was just too hard to resist - it’s been my favorite for almost 30 years now!

Other Songs Considered:
Nightswimming, Fall on Me, Everybody Hurts, Strange Currencies, Orange Crush, What’s the Frequency Kenneth?