track 22: half a world away

In the spring of 1991, R.E.M. had a monumental hit with the song "Losing my religion" from their album Out of Time. I had known them only because of their great song "Stand," which had been popular a couple of years ago. But "Losing my religion" (with it's accompanying video directed by Tarsem Singh) was one of the first big songs to cross over from college stations to popular ones, really one of the first songs that brought "alternative music" out into the daylight (which would continue when Nirvana showed up a year later).



I remember hearing the song on the radio during the last spring break of my high school years. Kristi and I drove up to her family's home in Troy, Alabama, where she was going to college at Troy State University. I was visiting the school and had an interview in the hopes of getting some kind of scholarship there. I don't really know what I was thinking, I guess it was about just wanting to go away with my friend and even though I was admitted, I didn't go to Troy State. My mom gave me like $200 for the whole trip, which was more than enough. The first night we were in Alabama, we went to some midnight sale at this mall with her family. Before midnight, we walked the mall and I dropped half of my vacation money in the music store. I think I bought like five CDs, but mostly remember getting Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation, Siouxsie & the Banshees' Peepshow and an album by a country singer I really liked, Lorrie Morgan, called Something in Red. My tastes had gone from teenage pop to hair bands to full on eclectic. That night, I also bought a book called The Diary of Laura Palmer, this Twin Peaks based novel that was supposed to be Laura's real diary. In fact, it was written by David Lynch's daughter, Jennifer Lynch, who went on to write and direct the terrible movie Boxing Helena and more recently, Surveillance. I remember on the way back to their house, Kristi's brother was giving me a hard time about it & told his mom that there are two whole pages where it's just a list of guys that Laura Palmer had sex with. I denied it. He was right.



Aside from the college visit, the week was pretty low-key. We hung out with Kristi's relatives, rented movies (Child's Play) and I dyed my hair red. When we got back, I think it was the day before Easter. My mom was still putting out our Easter baskets, filled with candy & some random gifts back then, so on Easter Sunday, I had a copy of Out of Time in my basket. It was another eye-opening album, followed by my discovery of the band's earlier collection, Eponymous. I listened to these albums all the time, wrote a short story called "Can't Get There From Here" inspired by the title of one of the band's songs, and even set it in a city called Rockville after my favorite R.E.M. song, "Don't go back to Rockville." And I had this poster on my wall:


The next year when their gorgeous Automatic For The People album was released, I was there on the first day to get my copy. It was even better than Out of Time, beautiful and sad... In fact, it might have been one of those albums that is so perfect that whatever comes next just never had a chance. At least, it was for me. Monster never caught my ear, nor has most of the stuff they've recorded since, so I've sort of... stayed out of time, if you will, and stuck with that particular phase of R.E.M.