I've Been High

This is one of the best songs on Reveal in my opinion. It's very electronic and not very acustic, but as said before, it's not necessary a bad thing.

Anyway, this is probably one of the R.E.M. songs I've analysed most. I just love the lyrics.

This is about a person who wants to live his "life on high", to feel the constant rush and kick of happiness, a person who wants to do everything and travel everywhere. "Have I missed the big reveal?" Kinda lives in an unrealistic way, and it pays back. This is one of the times when "life washes over him", he starts to question himself and what he have seen. What he really want is to life his life on high, and for people to believe in him. The feeling of happiness and excitement is gone, and this person is not able to see clear in this mood. I get a clear picture of being lost and confused.

The step beetween happy and depressed is so huge, that explains "So I dive into a pool so cool and deep, that if I sink I sink and when I swim I fly so high" If he sink, he sink, and if he swim, there's this huge happiness rush over him. There is nothing in the middle. Kinda reminds me of myself and my moodswings :3 Very nice methafor.

The song as I understand it says that you cannot have all your life "on high", like everybody would like to. If you want to travel, not miss things, to gain experiences, you would have to take risks and sometimes the life will wash over you, which mean take you down as a big wave. And as higher you climb, the more painful is the fall.

The line "So I dive into a pool so cool and deep, that if I sink I sink and when I swim I fly so high" is one of my favorite lines in songs that I know. You should imagine swimming in a deep pool. When you are swimming on the surface of the water you are like flying high relatively to the bottom, a divine experience if you survive. But the risk is that you can sink and die in the cool and deep water.

Besides, there are a parallel connotations to using drugs: "I've been high", "my eyes seem empty". These are also a risky actions that brings you to point of high, but later comes the fall.

(Sorry in advance if I have linguistic mistakes. English is not my mother tongue)

Great song, I think it's about loss of faith (the big reveal)- that religion is a beautiful myth. Pretty apparent or at least strongly suggested from the lyrics- "I fell down on me knees Was I wrong? I don't know, don't answer. I just needed to believe." and the final bit which is a plea for meaning in the face of doubt- "Make my make believe, Believe in me." Having grown up in the conservative South (and attended school at UGA in Athens), religion - particularly Protestant Christianity- is a powerful influence. I think the song is a paean to recognizing that God and a happy hereafter is just a myth- but one we wish was true.

the best way to describe this i think is 'beautifully optimistic melancholy'. this song moves me. anyways, that's what i think...

Cumon people! only one comment! this is their freackin best song

i think this song shows radiohead's real influence over michael. its got a sparse, electronic feel to it and the drum machine intro is undeniably close. not that it's a bad thing

I have a different interpretation of what this song means, based of course on my own life experience.

I love this song . . . it's one of my favorite REM songs (and I have several).

The first time I heard this was during the 2004 presidential elections, and I felt myself tearing up. It just reminded me so strongly of how much belief in the promise of the world had been in my youth and how that belief was being constantly challenged and beaten down by the news and "real life" each day.

So, in that context, I saw someone who was naturally optimistic and gracious in their approach to life but who has grown disillusioned. They desperately want to understand what they missed . . . how they could have been so wrong. "Life washes over me," in that context isn't a good thing. It's the forces of the real world drowning their faith. They want to escape that by letting go - letting it wash them away or by soaring away from it, whatever escape they can find.

In the end, what they really want - what they really want (as the song says ;) - is to live life on high, to be able to hold onto that once strong faith in the goodness of life and carry it with them, and to see it in other people, they way they once did. In this song, they are taking a big leap of opening up to themselves - and someone else - about their heartfelt desire because they see something in that other person they hope means they feel the same.

That's how I interpret it anyhow.

It always reminds me of Fox Mulder!!!

I've read that Up was one of the main influences on the sound of Kid A, and if you'd heard the album, you'd know that Stipe and co.'s heads were in the electronic place before any Radioheads were. The only difference is, R.E.M. has that electricity undertowing something of value. I find Radiohead to be all pomp and no circumstance, and find it nearly offensive that someone says that they influenced R.E.M. on a page meaning to provide forum for one of the most simply elegant lyrics I've ever heard.
This is one of the most beautiful songs in the catalog, R.E.M.'s or anyone elses. Radiohead's best stuff, by the way, can't touch R.E.M.'s worst.