R.E.M. "New Test Leper"

If you're a dope smoker, you're naturally paranoid.

I mean, not just from smoking dope, but (at least back in my day) from getting caught.

I was never one of those guys who could light up a joint in public and not care.

Really, I was never really a pot smoker myself.  But I certainly traveled with pot smokers.

We were seeing R.E.M. at an amphitheater outside Nashville.  This was the tour behind the record "Monster" and they were trying out new material that would eventually appear on "New Adventures In Hi Fi."  It was raining.  There were a lot of young people there who were more interested in drinking beer and making out, than listening to the band.

To make things a little brighter, one of my friends decided to light up a joint.

He hadn't gotten too far, before a figure was coming down our aisle, with a flashlight.

I nudged him.  Instinctively, he tossed the joint to the ground and stepped on it.

The woman with the flashlight brushed passed me, handed something to my friend and kept walking.

I gave him a quizzical look.

He laughed and showed me the sticker she'd give him.

Hear the song on Youtube.

R.E.M. "Tongue"

"Are you guys getting wet out there?"

I was seeing R.E.M. on their tour supporting "Monster." It was their first tour in 6 years. Things had changed for R.E.M.

The last time they had been on tour, it was behind the album "Green," their 6th record, which, like each predecessor, got them a little more attention than the last record. They had graduated to playing arenas.

But albums seven and eight were real breakthroughs, major worldwide successes. So by the time record number nine, "Monster," was released, the band's decision to tour brought them to much larger venues, including outdoor amphitheaters.

This night, outside of Nashville, Tennessee, the weather wasn't so great. Rain had been on and off, and thunderstorms were threatening. But the rain had stopped when Michael Stipe asked the question:

"Are you guys getting wet out there?"

And it struck me as a sign of much change with R.E.M. when Stipe, is a slow, low voice, followed his question with:

"I'm a little moist myself."

With earlier albums touching on political subjects and more recent albums awash in tasteful strings, with their activism up-front-and-center and their prevailing attitude being unadulterated earnestness, R.E.M. up to that point, had never struck me as a "funny" band. Or a "sexy" band.

Fun? Yes. Energetic? Yes. Even cheerful? Sometimes. But not usually funny. And never playfully sexy.

But in a quick flash on the previous album (when Stipe throws an Andy Kaufman-as-Elvis-Presley impression into "Man On The Moon"), and moreso on "Monster," the band, and Stipe in particular, seemed to be having fun with the characters in the songs.

And the song that followed his "moist" quip seemed to be the culmination of a willingness to really be something different, be someone different.

He introduced the song by saying, "Sometimes I write songs for boys. Sometimes I write songs for girls. This one, is for the ladies."

Can you imagine a full-song falsetto, up-front and on top of the mix, on an early album like "Fables Of The Reconstruction" or "Murmur"? No way.

"Tongue" had it. It sounded great. It suited the band. It was a sign of change and of growth. It was a good moment.



See the video on Youtube.

From a documentary, with a bit of discussion about "Tongue"

See the video on Youtube.