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Green-Untitled Lyrics
This world is big and so-awake
I stayed up late to hear your voice
This light is here to keep you warm
This song is here to keep you strong
I made a list of things to say
But all I really want to say
All I really want to say is
Hold her and keep him strong
While I'm away from here
Hold her and keep her strong
While I'm away from here
I've seen the world and so-awake
And stay up late to hear me sing
Just hold her
I've seen the world and so-awake
And stay up late to hear me sing
Just hold him
Hold her and keep her strong
While I'm away from here
Hold him and keep him strong
While I'm away from here
I stayed up late to hear your voice
This light is here to keep you warm
This song is here to keep you strong
But all I really want to say
All I really want to say is
Hold her and keep him strong
While I'm away from here
Hold her and keep her strong
While I'm away from here
And stay up late to hear me sing
Just hold her
I've seen the world and so-awake
And stay up late to hear me sing
Just hold him
Hold her and keep her strong
While I'm away from here
Hold him and keep him strong
While I'm away from here
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"I stay up late to hear your voice" is slightly echoed in R.E.M.'s "At My Most Beautiful" on the Up album, with the lyric "I save your messages just to hear your voice." Both songs are intimate and gorgeous meditations on presence, attentiveness, and emotional investment. The difference is "Untitled" is universal and familial, while "At My Most Beautiful" is decidedly romantic.
I love the idea of this song functioning as a comforting memento, or even a protective talisman for the listener, and a reminder to spread warmth, light, comfort, and strength to those you love, even when you're not near them, and encouraging them to do the same (This light is here to keep you warm / This song is here to keep you strong... Hold him/her and keep him/her strong / While I'm away from here).
It started off as a cool way to end the Green album, but this song became an infectious earworm for me pretty quickly, and not the bad kind. It stuck to my brain and will likely never leave. This many years later, it's one of my favorite songs from R.E.M.'s impressive body of work.
[Edit: formatting adjustment]
I read an interview (on somebody's blog) with Michael Stipe where he said it was really cool to put hidden tracks on albums back then, and it doesn't have a title because they were pretending like it didn't exist. He said he wrote it for his parents, who he missed while the band was touring.
It's one of my favorite REM songs.
A simple yet great love song, easily the best off of Green.
Isn't the first line This world is big, and so are we?
@laocoon That's what I always thought.
@laocoon That's what I always thought.
@laocoon I did, too, but listening on a better set of speakers than I had when it was new, I can confirm, it's "awake".
@laocoon I did, too, but listening on a better set of speakers than I had when it was new, I can confirm, it's "awake".
@applescruff909 technology strikes again lol. This is why we can't have nice things AND our cherished (if mistaken) memories amirite? lol
@applescruff909 technology strikes again lol. This is why we can't have nice things AND our cherished (if mistaken) memories amirite? lol
And fwiw, I havent seen another human in here since about 2002. I thought I was the only one left. So what a cool surprise to be working and shuffling spotify and come here in the first time since forever and there was actual humanity here this decade
And fwiw, I havent seen another human in here since about 2002. I thought I was the only one left. So what a cool surprise to be working and shuffling spotify and come here in the first time since forever and there was actual humanity here this decade
@forest29 I was beginning to think I was the only one here, too! I'm humbled by how many songs I've been singing the wrong lyrics to, for decades in many cases.
@forest29 I was beginning to think I was the only one here, too! I'm humbled by how many songs I've been singing the wrong lyrics to, for decades in many cases.
Isn't the chorus "Hold her and keep her strong while I'm away from her" not away from here?
These lyrics are correct
These lyrics are correct