This song isn't explicity anit-Bush. I saw them in concert the other ngiht and they said Final Straw and I Wanted to Be Wrong were their protest songs.
He described this one as about "A revolution that almost happend"
Now I'm jsut trying to think. I agree that the "day when the music stopped" is a reference to American Pie. But, what was the day that the music stopped that Maclean was referring too.
@RABicle In "American Pie" it's "the day the music died." Not sure if it refers to the same thing in any case; it just seems unlikely. Most people think American Pie was about the death of Buddy Holly — while this meant a lot to the earliest rock 'n' roll audience, it isn't all that significant for the generation that grew up listening to R.E.M.
@RABicle In "American Pie" it's "the day the music died." Not sure if it refers to the same thing in any case; it just seems unlikely. Most people think American Pie was about the death of Buddy Holly — while this meant a lot to the earliest rock 'n' roll audience, it isn't all that significant for the generation that grew up listening to R.E.M.
This song isn't explicitly anything — that's one of the (many) things I have always loved about R.E.M.: their lyrics are so subtle, so obscure, and often so bloody weird....
This song isn't explicitly anything — that's one of the (many) things I have always loved about R.E.M.: their lyrics are so subtle, so obscure, and often so bloody weird. You have to be figure out what they're about, because it's never obvious. I think that a lot of their songs, while perhaps not intended as specifically political, have much broader meanings, including some that can be viewed as political. They manage to have a broad range of meanings without being at all generic and/or meaningless. In this time of heavy-duty us-versus-them politics, it's not hard to hear the political interpretation, but that's only one of many meanings in the song. The best music (and surely R.E.M. falls in this category!) is multi-layered.
Also (and they are hardly alone in this) they seem rather quick to deny (publicly) any political meaning in their music, but, well...'nuff said. Probably they just don't want the press attention that tends to come with "controversial" songs.
This song isn't explicity anit-Bush. I saw them in concert the other ngiht and they said Final Straw and I Wanted to Be Wrong were their protest songs.
He described this one as about "A revolution that almost happend"
Now I'm jsut trying to think. I agree that the "day when the music stopped" is a reference to American Pie. But, what was the day that the music stopped that Maclean was referring too.
@RABicle In "American Pie" it's "the day the music died." Not sure if it refers to the same thing in any case; it just seems unlikely. Most people think American Pie was about the death of Buddy Holly — while this meant a lot to the earliest rock 'n' roll audience, it isn't all that significant for the generation that grew up listening to R.E.M.
@RABicle In "American Pie" it's "the day the music died." Not sure if it refers to the same thing in any case; it just seems unlikely. Most people think American Pie was about the death of Buddy Holly — while this meant a lot to the earliest rock 'n' roll audience, it isn't all that significant for the generation that grew up listening to R.E.M.
This song isn't explicitly anything — that's one of the (many) things I have always loved about R.E.M.: their lyrics are so subtle, so obscure, and often so bloody weird....
This song isn't explicitly anything — that's one of the (many) things I have always loved about R.E.M.: their lyrics are so subtle, so obscure, and often so bloody weird. You have to be figure out what they're about, because it's never obvious. I think that a lot of their songs, while perhaps not intended as specifically political, have much broader meanings, including some that can be viewed as political. They manage to have a broad range of meanings without being at all generic and/or meaningless. In this time of heavy-duty us-versus-them politics, it's not hard to hear the political interpretation, but that's only one of many meanings in the song. The best music (and surely R.E.M. falls in this category!) is multi-layered.
Also (and they are hardly alone in this) they seem rather quick to deny (publicly) any political meaning in their music, but, well...'nuff said. Probably they just don't want the press attention that tends to come with "controversial" songs.