Everybody here comes from somewhere that they would just as soon forget and disguise!

Today on my lunch break, as I tend to do on every lunch break, I sat in my car and listened to music. It helps me escape for a few minutes from all the noise and chaos that goes hand-in-hand with being a grown up *. “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” popped up on the IPod and it got me drifting back in my nostalgic reflection. I can honestly say REM has always been there. Well at least since I discovered them somewhere around middle school.
They were the first band I allowed myself to like without anyone telling me I should. Believe me there were no kids pushing “Life’s Rich Pageant” on me in 5th grade. I just discovered the band. I don’t honestly know where, but in the world of late 80’s pop crap I came across something worth salvaging. It was what I imagine being in a fraternity is like. I knew something few other people around me discovered. Of course it didn’t take long for that to change, but there is still a passage way or two I can duck down in their REM repertoire.
Stipe et. all was there on an otherwise lonely trip to go skiing with my scout troop in middle school. A trip, I might add, in which my step-dad adopted the other more athletic kids to hang out with. REM was the inspiration for countless conversations with nerdy strangers who were also in on the secret. A few years later they even won me some points with the cool kids. They were also there when I had my first job pushing carts around a Publix parking lot and some douchebag surfer boy nearly ran me over while blasting “Losing My Religion” out of his I-Roc Z (or some other equally offensive vehicle.)
REM was right there on my t-shirt when one of the too cool for school stoner kids told me how much they dug “Radio Song.” Of course I snidely remarked “that’s my least favorite song on my least favorite album.” It wasn’t necessarily true, but it did end the unwanted conversation. REM was in the background of a pizza joint in Gainesville when I realized for the first time how much cooler college would be than high school.
REM was definitely there a few years later when I snuck backstage at the Orlando show reluctantly following my friend Jesse who claimed to know Stipe personally. To my surprise, he did. They were also there a decade later I was the only person standing during “Life and How to Live It” while every other soul at the show made a beer run. REM was there when I would hide on the back porch to escape my fiancé who couldn’t stop dragging me into an unwanted argument. They also created a perfect song to encapsulate that destructive relationship months later when they recorded “Leaving New York.”
REM carried me through the W era with songs like “Bad Day” and “The Outsiders.” During the “Up” era I lived alone in a strange city and spent most of that year with the CD on repeat. I didn’t have cable or internet, but I did have that one really spectacular album. With any luck REM will be there at my memorial service with “Pilgrimage” to send me off into the great unknown with some PowerPoint slide show. With any luck there are plenty of great songs and albums left from REM, but I can honestly say no other artist has so thoroughly created the soundtrack to my life.
*Which for the record totally sucks and I do NOT recommend it