Top 6 - R.E.M.

The shortlist for Top 6 R.E.M. went to a dozen very quickly so it was never going to be an easy process.

One item that was never going to get left out is Losing My Religion, a long-standing classic and favourite that has only its familiarity to count against it. Apparently a hymn to some kind of existential angst, one is often not quite sure what Michael's writing about but one appreciates his oblique 'poetry' and takes the rest on trust.

One suggestion I received having solicited them was Find the River and since it was high on the shortlist, it goes in with its sense of longing and nostalgia. That is a recurrent theme, one soon finds if one didn't realize already, but the tour de force The Great Beyond, which seems to find Stipe on top form describing what it feels like to be on top form provides a great counterbalance to regret and doubt,
I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond.

And then I have to add in Leaving New York, which was a very emotional piece on first hearing, on an otherwise lack lustre album, before I even realized it was about 9/11,
You might have laughed if I told you (it's pulling me apart)
You might have hidden a frown (change)
You might have succeeded in changing me (it's pulling me apart)
I might have been turned around (change)

It's easier to leave than to be left behind (it's pulling me apart)
Leaving was never my proud (change)
Leaving New York, never easy (it's pulling me apart)
I saw the light fading out
You find it in your heart, it's pulling me apart
You find it in your heart, change...

All of which leaves us already with only two selections left and a lenghty list to pick from. There's not going to be room for a novelty no. 6 here.

I've got to have So. Central Rain with its contained melancholy becoming a thundering cry of desperation and so it is a vast problem to be left with only one choice. There will be many whose precious personal favourite isn't mentioned here but those are the rules, you can only mention six.

I've very reluctantly admitted it's not this, it's not that, so it's between these. I'm going to go with The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite but it would be no problem to furnish another six without any need to start compromising.

Well done, R.E.M., and thanks for having been there for so long.