Random R.E.M. musings

Slicing Up Eyeballs offers their ratings (or rather, their readers' ratings) of all 282 R.E.M. songs. On at least a few of 'em gotta weigh in in my own masturbatory manner. So here we go, in reverse order.

• Beachball - The lowest-ranked song that I recognize, at #243. A shame, really, because I kinda dig this one. It resonated with me as I ended my naturopathic student career. I wondered how I would do as a doctor in the real world. Michael Stipe reassured me over and over at the end, over music as soothing as a mild orange sherbet, "You'll do fine." Years later, I agree. I didn't do great, I didn't do terrible. I did fine.
• Beat a Drum - A second one off of Reveal. Equally pretty. I must have downloaded the best off that album.
• It Happened Today - These guys really leaned hard into their pretty, pretty melodies on Collapse Into Now. This and "Everyday Is Yours To Win" and "Walk It Back" and "Oh My Heart" land juuust this side of not too cloying. These are chamber pop in my book on par with the slower, prettier songs on Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers.
• Photograph - R.E.M. really hit a limit here. A clean, simple melody with poignant lyrics, with the poster child of college rock and political correctness, Natalie Merchant, accompanying the other poster child of college rock and political correctness. And this is taken from an album in support of abortion rights. Yes, it is a good song, but...um...speaking of cloying, this is it. No wonder R.E.M. did Monster after this and never looked back. A palate-cleanser was sorely needed.
• The Wrong Child - I already wrote about this one.
• Strange Currencies - Storytime. College in 1995. A friend of mine who was an amateur guitarist really wanted to play this song and have me accompany him. I hated this song and was sorely disappointed in Monster. But he kept bugging me, so I joined him one morning in the on-campus coffeehouse when no one was around. But I decided to oversing it. Try to make it really ugly and loud. Sing a bit off-key, even. To my chagrin, someone came into the empty coffeehouse to tell us that we sounded good. Well, fuck a duck. I couldn't even sing badly well. Then again, the song is loud and off-key a bit, so maybe I just...got it right. Oh well.