What Makes This Song Great? "Losing My Religion" R.E.M. 

True. Peter Buck provided melody without being a flashy guitar player.

Exactly. Never the same after Bill left. Made me realise how important a great drummer was to a band.. and Mike Mills - legendary !

All four where amazing musicians, but I agree with what you said about Mike mills

And Mike’s backing vocals were sooooo complimentary to Michael’s voice!

I don't think peter buck was underrated. Under appreciated, perhaps

BigCat9966 👍👍👍

Very cool story and congrats on a long and continuing marriage. Michael’s voice and Peter’s mandolin did the trick, huh?

Great story! May love increase!

My college fiance was a big REM fan. Turns out I was just her f buddy, and didn't know it. :( It's been 28 happy years without her! LOL. I still like REM though.

Considering the song is all about a guy pining for someone who doesn't know he exists makes your story all the better, Danky.

Spellbound46and2 I love it when that happens in music!

As I listened to that part, I thought to myself, "This is like going to church."

@8:38, absolutely... and @13:32 when the more rhythmic strings come in, it's haunting to the point of being highly disturbing. It's deathly. Michael Stipe's singing accent sounds weirdly Irish, on the edge of that yodelly sound you hear in The Cranberries. I find it magical... His vocals are so special. I don't understand how he's not talked about as the best singer of his generation.

...And not to mention the pure voice @6:32. It might be more powerful than the original song.

I’d like a strings and vocal version. It’s so cool.

agree totally.

Yep. You take away Mike Mills' backing vocals, you lose about 1/3rd of the "character" that makes REM such a great band. Simply irreplaceable. Listen to songs like "Get Up" and "Moral Kiosk" and countless others and you realize that Mills counted as two band members.

Exactly douglas! I love Ricks breakdowns.

Rick's dissection of the songs makes them enjoyable in another level. I really appreciate it. And I don't even like this song.

Echo and ditto. I'm not a musician nor aspiring but the breakdown is showing me details and complexity of music writing and playing decisions that I couldn't otherwise fathom. I don't even have much of an ear for the different chords he is describing, but I'm gradually getting a feel for how we respond to hearing certain combinations and constructions.

I'd suggest learning a little about each instrument. The more you learn, even if it's just a little, will shape how you hear music and enhance your aural palate in turn casting a new light on songs you've heard many times before.

Yes, well put - exactly!

"Consider this. Consider this the hint of the century. Consider this the slip that brought me to my knees..." is one of my favourite lyrics of all time

Stuart O failed

Loogaroo I’ve gone back to so many of these bands from the 90’s...was never really into REM as a youngun...they’re amazing.

I hate to break it to you guys but the lyrics in this song are random and non sensical. Just saying........

@@johnh7018 No they're not. It's a love song.

There best song esp live

I just spent an hour watching WMTSG video I had missed. 8)

I watch them over and over to mitigate that worst thing.

These are my go to "chill out on an evening" videos. Pour a glass of scotch, headphones on and find out "What makes a song great?"

super addictive contents indeed.

I know! he didn't even talk about the backing vocals and harmonies...

As Michael said recently, the true etymology of that phrase is, (i've) "Lost my Religion", which is essentially means that events have taken me beyond my wit's end to the point i've lost my religion. In Southern Culture, it is indeed a strong statement. A person may use this phrase rather than swearing (taking The Lord's Name in vain) but in its way, it is the same thing. Being brought to the point of taking The Lord's Name in vain is essentially, possibly literally, having lost sight of one's religion in the face of tribulation. Don't ya just love people that feverishly study minutiae?

Losing one's s***, basically. Not that I'm equating religion with s***. It just occurred to me all of a sudden. And what the heck is an all of a sudden anyway? Could there be less than all of a sudden? like half of a sudden? Three-quarters of a sudden?

@@kilgoretrout3966 "At my wit's end" is a good explanation, or "losing one's s**t". I can imagine a Dad saying "you'd better clean your room, I'm gonna be losing my religion in a minute." Not that he's going to quit his religion because of it, more a warning that he's getting too emotional to control his anger. Maybe it's minutia but I have to admire Stipe for turning the idea into amazing lyrics.

@@ShotDownInFlames2 Yes, exactly! and i guess it is that type of word play that drew me into the minutiae. i discovered them in 1982...very early on, and the EP and first 5 LPs are still their best, and perhaps one of the most sustained, hottest entries into music. By now we that love them have read all the early lyrics..and it doesn't ruin it for me. Michael kinda was like another instrument that drove the mood in the early music. As a coincidence, i decided yesterday to learn "Gardening at Night", then today i find Rick of Atlanta at last does a "What Makes..." video of R.E.M. Sometimes life can make ya smile like that...and what a fun song to play. The "only Peter Buck" aspect is that you tune the high e to d, and make it ring throughout, it is rarely fretted, and provides a great tension in the right places. Buck is so very underrated...why...because he didn't take enough solos? i dunno, bu the way he picks thru chords in varying patterns may be one of the largest influences on my playing style. Great Schtuff, man!

See, now if I had known that! I’d probably liked this song more when I was 17

I drove a Yugo, and those lyrics hit deep :-)

For a Thanksgiving program at our language school, a few American students rewrote the words with the chorus, “that’s me on the toilet, losing my thanksgiving...”. The most hilarious thing about it was a very religious seminary.

🤣🤣🤣

'èè

I often sang: That me at the coroner’s, that me on the slab, dead, lost my circulation.

His voice just grabs your soul somehow

I think it’s that his voice has so much imperfection, I tend to like singers who have kind of scratchy voices cause to me it portrays more humanity.

Limited range -- but so had Billie Holliday. Stipe works really well w/in an octave or so, with so nice modulations and almost Brazilian quarter-tones. The other thing he does so well in this song is moving the line lengths and downbeats around. In poetry, the techniques are called 'enjambment' and 'caesura': wrapping around a line here, slapping a pause in the middle of a linethere. You get a LOT of it in Fleetwood Mac songs, esp. Stevie's writing. (Her solo track "Edge of Seventeen" is exhibit A, how to play with line lengths.)

@@robertmcgovern8850 Very true. I use to sing in a band when I was younger and back in the days it seemed to be all about how high a rock singer could go. Stipe torched us all....and laughed all the way to the bank. lol.

I agree. I always thought he should collaborate either Stevie Nicks and Billy Jo Armstrong for an awesome song.

And their prime started with Radio Free Europe.

@@somercet1 True, but he managed one last album - new adventures - which for me is the greatest record they made. To be fair to him, he basically nearly died and you can see why he left.

@@outtolunch88 Everything after Life's Rich Pageantry was the down turn for me. It was good, but their sound pivoted. Yeah they needed to evolve, but Stipes lyrics became less of an instrument that blended into the band. Later, the band supported him and his message. That's when I stopped the rotation of the newer albums in my collection. Meaning, they had some good tunes, but those early albums I don't have a favorite song. The whole album was a gem.

@@somercet1 I agree, I remember REM being an enormous band

REM were one of the biggest rock bands in the world, the mainstream music press would alternate between them and U2 for the number 1 crown (until OK Computer blew them both away).

Mills is an awesome bassist, one of the best In my opinion. He's a very good singer too.

A highly underrated musician. His bass line makes South Central Rain, and his piano playing on Perfect Circle and Satellite is incredible. REM would not be the same band without him.

@@pcole11 He's like John Paul Jones in Led Zep. Always tasteful basslines but his keyboard work makes him the special sauce that makes everything better.

Oops, I meant Electrolyte.

I thought mandolin makes the song!

"Help" - The Beatles

The Smiths were masters of this.

Same reaction here.

Sting is really good at writing songs in a major key that sound happy, but the content of the song is sad. All This Time is a good example.

Yeah you're totally right. I kind of knew that subconsciously but didn't really realize that til you said it. That mandolin and rythym section does really groove in an upbeat way but the singing seems like it makes it more dissonant in certain spots and the lyrics are pretty sad.

Seriously. Not only what Rick mentioned, but GnR and Metallica, RHCP, and Boot Scootin Boogie, if you're into that kinda thing

@@B_Rowen Dinosaur Jr, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Kyuss.... Hell of a year....

The early nineties were probably the golden age of alternative rock. Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, The Pixies, The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead. Most of them bands that rose to fame during this period.

Loveless and Spiderland were also released in 91, such a great year for alternative music

In my opinion its in the top 3 best years of music along with 75' and 68'

I was thinking the same -- it's like the elephant in the room -- a lot of the songs he covers have lyrics you can take or leave but not this one . . .

The music, the lyrics, the video -- everything is great with this song.

Absolutely. I was trying to decide if the strings are synth. I think they are.

So envious you got to see them ao many times!! Good taste in music.

Well done. I was born in Athens and grad UGA '82. Got several bands out of Athens in the '70s and '80s: Normaltown Flyers, B-52s, REM, etc. The small clubs and dives in Normaltown (on the western side of the city limits) was turning out bands.

@@slypperyfox First time I saw them was in May 1980 at Tyrone's OC when they opened for the Brains. According to the R.E.M. timeline that was their first paying gig.

As an aside, our youngest son grad UGA in '17. During the end of his Jr year and into his Senior year he worked as a DJ at the UGA radio station. They were not allowed to play any popular music by known bands. It all had to be demo material sent out by the bands themselves or producers testing the waters of new music. Can't imagine how many bands went through the testing grounds of college radio stations during their early days.

We lived in Athens at this time… the B-52s were hot… but everyone was talking about the ‘new band’ at the ‘40 Watt Club’…. I bought used vinyl LPs at Wuxtry’s… where Mike Mills and Peter Buck often clerked…

Absolutely.The ability to unleash and immerse oneself in complicated and contradictory emotions is more important to me than technical virtuosity.Peter buck does that so much more superbly than many other more technically accomplished guitarists.

Absolutely. One of my favorite songs of all time is Man on The Moon and the bass line and the chord progression of that song are unique. But Buck’s guitar playing in it is almost like a guitarist playing in a string quartet.

I think "Monster" did that for him. A real guitar tour de force.

Sadly? Peter Buck’s goal was to be to be underrated!

My favorite stuff from him is in the early years when he was playing some beautiful jangly guitar parts. It sucks that, because they got popular in the 90s, people ignore the 80s output, which is what made them the flagship band of the American indie scene.

The One I Love.... and dont forget his lead vocals in song "Texarkana"

@@juhos30000 And the melodic last verse to So. Central Rain. That's the best part of the song imo.

Mike Mills is the ultimate back up singer! Just awesome!

I second that!!!

Third!

YESSS!! I’ve been listening to that song a lot lately and thought the same!!

bensepulveda71 agreed!

I would love to hear a feature on Living Color. One of the best albums from start to finish.

I picked up a mandolin because the fingering/tuning is the same as violin, which I had ideas about playing after restoring one of my grandfathers' players. But what I really want to learn is The cavaquinho, featured in so much of the Brasilian music I love!

@@johnlaodicean7862 lol impossible

safenders - LOL! I don’t even play anything stringed, but Thile intimidates me. It’s because I’m not used to hearing performers who are *that* technically adept (essentially one of the best mandolinists who has ever lived) who haven’t gotten lost in the technique & theory. Thile is still able to compose pieces that are still drenched with so much relatable emotion that even a casual music listener has no problems feeling what is being played. It’s so rare to have top-tier technical/theory complexity written and performed with the emotional “listenability” as a 3 chord Bob Marley song.

There’s also mandolin on Everything from Green.

There's Mandolin on "Green"

Agreed on "Automatic". Pretty flawless album and "Nightswimming" in particular makes me emotional to this day. Never heard anything better capture the bittersweetness of lost youth

Losing my religion means some one is getting really pissed off to the point the might do something against hell beliefs

@@deadsirius3531 "Find The River" all day long. Once in a while, I listen to "Automatic" and it's like talking to an old friend.

edalder2000 agree on automatic for the people. “Drive” spoke to me during a dark time in my life.

Same here.

I agree. Stipe has twitchy movements that do not go with his vocals. I could go on about the rest of the band. The video is so artistically arranged It's as good as the song if not better. Maybe.

I agree! I wish I could sing and play instruments! This is my favorite RU-vid channel for the explanation you gave!

Beato is the italian for "happy" ;-)

👍🏼🥰🥰🥰 Love Rick’s enthusiasm!!

That's part of what I like about this series though. He points out a lot of stuff in songs that I hadn't noticed before and now appreciate when I hear it

Same here. I can't believe I never heard the strings.

They sounded like synth strings to me, and Mills is credited with playing keyboards on the song. While it wouldn't surprise me to not see credit given to the string players, I really think that this is a synth.

I think it is synth as well, however, if you look for live performances of this song by the band you will find some with a backing string section.

This is called "beato effect" hahah

Very solid drummer..... But that's CRAZY.

@robert proctor Same! Always love the song; now I feel like I *appreciate* it.

Respect! I will appreciate this song even more now! Thank you for sharing your personal experience.

Thanks for sharing that!

I cannot imagine what you guys went through at that moment, but I get how that heartfelt music hit you and also helped you. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for sharing. Thank you for your service.

Just when you needed it Music comes in

Mills and Berry often have really good harmonies as well as backing vocals on songs that don't get enough credit.

Mike was a walking library of classic rock bass styles.

And common practice period harmony.

Damn that would've been really cool to hear

please do. we need more Mills' bassline on the internet.

I love his playing. Signed: A bass player.

Im another born in 73. We had great stuff growing up eh

Roy Walker amen!

@@undinism69 yes, i feel we were privileged to have been around such famtastic bands in the 90's in our youth !!

Born in '71, got this album in my early twenties, and also still love it!

@@gerhardvaneeden5615 Good man !! Had a listen to it yesterday & it is truly awesome. The melodies are Beatle-esque

I've met them all at different times... Being a fan since Fall 1982. They are each very cool and don't project any "rock-star" vibes.

Please, PLEASE don't tell me that the song at your wedding was "The One I love" ...... That would be disasterous!

It's hard to call them a 90's band--they started in 1981 and continued through 2011.

Please stop with the exclamation points.

@@SteelMoments I personally think their 90s era is their prime, but that's just me.

@@th3giv3r :^{

@@RC32Smiths01 Their break-out album and two of their top-three biggest hits (Stand, The One I Love) were released in 1988 (1987, in the case of the single release of The One I Love). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

captmcneil Mandolin is a great second instrument for a guitarist.

It's not surprising!

Gary Smith Great take - my model for this is Can’t Get There From Here.

@@spacemissing 4 songs. One of the best EP's ever!

Never heard that quote. Brilliant. Going to be used on my band's bass player soon!

Science and craft

Mike Yerian When I play along to this on the bass, I throw in the riff from “The Chain” at the end.

@@imjeffp One should throw in the riff from The Chain on all songs played.

Singles, right? I remember them! I envy you for the Hib-tone of Radio Free Europe. Wow!

Ty Roberts WOW!

Yeah.. 1st time I got my hands on that album I was 13...

You're Lucky.....NOT OLD.....I am in my late 50s and I am fortunate to have a "broader sweep" of popular musical exposure than many of my family and younger friends (I was a teacher). I can go back and forth across a larger expanse of genres and with Spotify, Tidal etc, I have the means to do so...easily !!!..........more fun than ever!

This song takes me back to my first year at university

Cheers Mr. Turner. It's good to see you appreciate good music as well as all the good places I see you on RU-vid.

You bet he does :-)

I was surprised Rick didn’t mention the little breath intake Michael does which is one of the things that makes this song great.

He could sing the phone book and it would always be enchanting

I agree that he has "some voice". Some voice that grates like nails on a chalkboard. Only thing worse than his voice in my opinion is Mike Mills' voice. Truly hard to listen to. Never really saw why this band was so popular, but then again, I never saw why Celine Dion got any further than open mike night status in her career. I have 2 friends that met Stipe in social settings about a decade apart awhile back and both said he was a complete dick, not necessarily to them, but just in general to those around him. They are both fans and were surprised and maybe felt a little let down by this. I said maybe it was just a bad day for him, idk, I don't think he's a dick, I've never met the guy. I'm just not a fan of his voice, or his band. Anyway, yah, they're famous, they're still popular. I rate Stipe's voice on the annoying scale right up there with Morrissey. Good God that guy's voice is awful. My opinion, everybody's got 'em. Pile on, REM fans! PS I never saw this song as more than average. It obviously has a sentimentality factor among the fans. I think Rick should've saved his breath(and his time) on this one.

@@joesutherland2017 That is your opinion, and it's not a very good one, I believe. That's the first person I've heared say that, so... What he is personally is not here nor there.

And he was in a shitty mood after yelling at the engineer.

True.

What a legend! Amazing vocalist!

Insane. You would never imagine this was the case because the recording is so perfect. Legendary.

I heard something a while back that he actually really struggled to find the right vocal rhythm/timing for the song. Obviously, he figured out something pretty amazing!

@Rumy 73 Probably true - and sad to say I agree with Rick that they were never the same after Bill left - but Pageant is sooooo good

Giddy Aunt Life's Rich Pageant is their best.

“Life’s Rich Pageant” is a great record! My favorite R.E.M. album. I always thought it was under appreciated.

Giddy Aunt >> Yeah, Bill’s departure killed REM. It’s like with Bonham dying except Bill just fucked off to be a farmer or something...

@@jaybee9269 having a brain aneurysm on stage probably will do that to you, make you re-evaluate your priorities. I hold no ill will against him leaving but it's true that he brought so much to the sound.

@Philip Quinn and mine.

love that song

Firewoman!

I don't think Rick has listened to any English bands from the 80s.

@@HamishGarland It’s possible that he hasn’t met many English band members but he’s certainly talked about the likes of the more universally well-known ones such as The Police, Genesis and Yes quite a bit. Haven’t heard him mention bands such as XTC though and I don’t recall him mentioning Queen at all, but perhaps I missed it?

Me too. Those were my guesses. I was surprised he went so much later, but now I'm so glad he did.

Fall On Me, So. Central Rain, Perfect Circle would have been great too

@@ShiningHourPop If you want to go way back how about wolves lower? Great guitar work by Buck on that one. Another forgotten album is Dead letter office which is a bit weird but has a bunch of gems.

@@ShiningHourPop I would love to get Rick's full breakdown of Perfect Circle. There's still something in that track that I don't quite understand, something that goes much deeper than the bare chords and melody. Plus, it's magic, from start to finish.

RT060789 Yeah Wolves, Lower’s guitars are so intricate and for me, so much more interesting than 90 million note a second shredding!

It is too bad Rick didn't discuss the lyrics. Guess he 'didn't want to go there'. Great lyrics. Ambiguous, but thoughtful, painful.

REM was my first concert back in 1989. I was only 12-years old at the time. Yes I'm dating myself here.

I really think the song 7 Chinese Brothers became the “sound” they would pursue the rest of their career. One of my all time favorite bands and the best underground band of the 1980’s.

@@distantgalaxymusic1447 My first experience with REM was seeing them live on the tour for "Reckoning" and 7 Chinese Brothers just blew me away. The whole drive from New Orleans back to our podunk South Mississippi college town we were listening to "Murmur" and "Reckoning", and I just kept saying "Play '7 Chinese Brothers' again."

You came to be a murmurer too huh ;)

My father, who has a really diverse taste in music told me they'd never be popular when I was listening to Reckoning. He also said the same about Under a Blood Red Sky! I do remind him...

Shayne O'Neill Thanks for the cue, time to find & listen to it on RU-vid. Great song!

I'd be interested in seeing that! I don't know much about their musical backgrounds but I always got the feeling they approached songwriting and arranging in a very different way than most rock groups due to the influence of the accordion as well as their use of samples/sequencers.

@Mike Yerian I just remember literally wearing out that CD

Agree. One of the greatest albums ever!

Document, Lifes Reach Pageant, Green, Monster... New Adventures In HiFi

Mike Yerian World Leader Pretend

Murmur and Life’s Rich Pageant are my two favorite albums.