Spent the weekend with longtime friends, which always gets the mind hopping from “thens” and “nows”. Before arriving, and since, I’ve had “Radio Song” by REM with KRS-One in my head. There’s something about it sonically that is gooey in my skull now. Could it be that it’s bouncy with bass? That it’s from when it was unique to have a guest artist on a song, before it became almost mandatory?
The lyrics are okay, but I don’t even know if it’s among my favorite 15 REM songs — and I don’t know REM particularly well — but there it is mentally rolling around. Does this stick in your head, too?
Four years ago, almost to the DAY, I posted about “Shiny Happy People”. How square am (was) I? I got into REM’s Out of Time a full year after it was released. When I enthused about it the summer of 1992, a good friend said “Where were you in 1991?” A good question, SJ!
When revisiting Out of Time, I rarely listen to the whole thing, but at a minimum I listen to the bookend songs. “Radio Song” and “Me In Honey”. In the epic 5-hour karaoke concert that plays constantly in my head full of guest starts from past and present, I duet with one person on “Me In Honey” and we rock the shit out of that song, then never talk with each other again, having reached the peak of visceral human communication and humor.
But that fantasy may be largely based in wanting to stand next to Kate Pierson (gush) from the B-52’s, the original guest vocalist on the song.
