Nice R.E.M. memories.
#1. My elementary school chum Imran trying to convince me of the genius of R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, circa 1992.
“This song is about a man who will never see his daughter again!” he told me while playing it for me in his bedroom one afternoon. “These are things that happen to real people!” I wasn’t so convinced. My idea of good music at that time pretty much started at Jan & Dean and ended with the early Beach Boys, and I definitely didn’t trust a bunch of weird dudes with funny haircuts, even if they did look sort of like my cool uncles (more on whom in a moment).
(Parenthetically: What song was Imran talking about? I still can’t figure that out, twenty years later. R.E.M. songs aren’t really about things. And I don’t think any of the songs on Automatic for the People involve fathers, do they? Anyway, Imran got really into Killing Joke in high school, from what I heard. I believe he is now a criminal defense attorney.)
It’s fair to say, I think, that from the mid-1980s well into the 2000s, R.E.M. was the music of choice for precocious elementary school children. What seems odd in retrospect is that Imran’s other favorite musician at the time was Phil Collins. The kid was seriously nuts about No Jacket Required.
#2. Receiving Fables of the Reconstruction as a Christmas gift from one of my cool uncles at age 13 or so.
I liked it but didn’t love it. I realize now, with the benefit of hindsight, that Imran and my cool uncle were right: I was wrong to not love Automatic or (especially) Fables.
#3. Seeing another cool uncle around the same age in one of those then-ubiquitous Out of Time t-shirts.
I recall thinking, “This uncle is different than other uncles. This is a cool uncle.”
I don’t think it denigrates anyone to suggest that R.E.M. is the music of cool uncles and cool aunts all across the United States.
Oddly, I don’t even remember which uncle that was. I think it was one of the ones formerly married to one of my cool aunts, which I guess makes him more of an ex-uncle. Actually, come to think of it, maybe he was just the boyfriend of one of my cool aunts. Still, that would make him a cool uncle, spiritually.
#4. Watching Athens Inside/Out on VHS with one of my cool college girlfriends in a seedy apartment and talking about what it would be like to live in Athens, Georgia.
It is also fair to say, I think, that R.E.M. is the music of cool college girlfriends and cool college boyfriends.
#5. Holding onto the insane and thoroughly debunked notion that Michael Stipe was the first person ever to hang Christmas lights indoors when it wasn’t Christmas.
Recounted here.
On this day, find a cool uncle, a cool aunt, a cool college girlfriend, a cool college boyfriend, or at least a precocious preteen boy or girl, and give them a hug or a slap on the shoulder for me. Thank them for their tireless efforts to make you seem cooler than you actually are.
