Thursday, September 29, 2011

Buy The Sky And Sell The Sky And Bleed the Sky And Tell The Sky - Parabasis:

As I was profoundly uncool, it started with Stand and never went further back than Document until I was in my twenties. As I was profoundly uncool, I loved Radio Song and hated most of Automatic For The People, still secretly kinda do. As I was profoundly uncool, my love of them comes from my love of singing them, not my love of listening to them.

This is the story of why, a day after hearing that REM had broken up, I woke up grief stricken. It’s the story of two boys with few friends other than each other. It’s recess time and there’s a red piano in a green music room in the basement of a private school in Washington, D.C. in 1991 and Dave and I are breaking into this room because we’re supposed to be outside but fuck that because touch football sucks and music is awesome, real music, not that playing recorder and xylophone bullshit we do during music class.

Music is Dave pounding on the piano and the two of us singing REM, a medly of songs off of Out Of Time and Green. Turn You Inside Out and You Are The Everything and Pop Song 89 and Me In Honey and, yes, Radio Song. With—oh God help me the things we have to admit if we are to be honest—yes, with me performing the KRS One part. Huh! Baby baby baby that stuff is driving me crazy DJs communicate, to the masses, sex and violence classes, now our children grow up prisoners all their life radio listeneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeers!

It’s a terrible song. Let’s get that straight. I know that now. I am not an idiot.