I used to really like R.E.M.
I was born in 1979, so I am a little younger than the college kids who really grabbed onto the new sounds of this unique band. My first exposure was probably hearing “Orange Crush,” “Stand,” or “The One I Love” on the radio. The ’80s and ’90s were the days when I only had the opportunity to listen to a song if I owned the album on vinyl or cassette, or happened to hear it on the radio.
I loved listening to the radio. I had my own little boombox radio and cassette player, and I listened nonstop in my bedroom, where it had to stay because it was corded. I recall begging for a battery-operated system, with no luck, because batteries were “wasteful” and “expensive.” I was given blank tapes so I could make recordings from the radio, which required a lot of readiness and attention to ensure I would not miss the first few beats of any given song. Sometimes I would record an entire DJ program in hopes that the song I actually wanted would come on. Young Mariah would have become obsessed with modern on-demand capabilities, but I digress.
In 1989, my soon-to-be stepfather moved himself, along with his large record collection, into our basement so he and my mother could fuck without my sister and me hearing. He was born in 1949, and his collection included the expected releases by Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Aerosmith, Talking Heads, and others. R.E.M. was one of the many bands I was drawn to in the collection, and at the time I was surprised he owned these albums because he was “old” and R.E.M. was for young people. I think he had all the R.E.M. albums, which I thought was especially “cool.” I was thrilled to be able to hear songs I loved, like “Talk About the Passion” and “(Dont Go Back To) Rockville,” with this man: a stranger who moved into our house who was fucking our mother (they were in love.)
Any mention of the soon-to-be stepfather, including the very exciting record collection, caused quite a bit of conflict during visitation with my father; he was insanely jealous despite the fact that he himself had started a whole new family before any of this happened.
It’s the end of the world as we know it (It’s time I had some time alone)
And I feel fine
With the arrival of my stepfather the basement transitioned from a space I could enter freely to one with restricted access. After an extended period under the explicit rule that I was not allowed to touch the records without his supervision, I was shown how to play them in the very specific way he wanted. Part of the process was using the flat pads of my right-hand fingers to handle only the extreme edges of the LP as it slid out of the dust jacket; touching the paper center, if needed, with my left middle finger; and then repositioning my left thumb and palm on the opposite outer edge. I would place the record on the turntable, turn on the rotation, and gently use a slightly dampened washcloth to wipe the LP in a circular motion, following the grooves. Over time, these washcloths would get musty, and the smell remained on my fingers and wafted through the room.
Adhering to this regulated process earned me the freedom to sit alone in the cold darkness, listening to whatever I wanted. For a preteen, it was tantalizing. Plus, when I was unsupervised, I could rifle around in the rest of his stuff, including under the bed, where he kept an extensive stash of porno magazines.
When I think about R.E.M. songs outside of the basement, I mostly think of the albums Out of Time (spring ’91) and Automatic for the People (fall ’92), which I bought on cassette at the local record shop, Record City (RIP). I listened to them on repeat and memorized most of the lyrics.
The world is collapsing around our ears
I turned up the radio, but I can’t hear it
What Out of Time had was “Losing My Religion.” This song was confusing to me as a twelve-year-old who did not have religion in my life but did have MTV in both households and not a lot of pushback regarding the content or duration of television I watched. This video played nonstop, which etched the lyrics into my brain and allowed my imagination to run with its visuals: Michael Stipe’s smooth yet jagged motions, along with a subtle notion that an angel was fabricated by man. I was really into art history and felt this was a nod to da Vinci’s flying machine, so I was confident that I was at least understanding that part of the conceptual imagery. The lyrics felt true to my experience of speaking and not being heard, being misunderstood, punished, and gaslit. I felt lost.
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
“Losing My Religion” hit the world with force, and I felt like this was the first clear instance in which I feared that a band I liked had “jumped the shark” or become too popular, too embedded in the consciousness of the masses. In retrospect, this is funny because, at the time, I only had access to radio songs and hit music, or whatever my stepfather or stepbrother brought into the house and played. This judgment continued into the ’90s, as bands like Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins got “too popular” to be cool. In reality, by the time I heard them, they were already popular with the college crowd and teens, just not the other kids at Maple Junior High, who mostly listened to “Hot Hits” on B96.
Hey, kids, rock and roll
Nobody tells you where to go, baby
Soon after, Automatic for the People was released and barely left my Sony Walkman, which replaced the boombox and allowed for more privacy and less complaining: “Why are you listening to the same album over and over?!” The cheap foam earpiece covers became a permanent fixture on my head around the house and on my long walk to school.
R.E.M. drowned out the chaos at school, where I was teased and bullied for being “weird and nerdy” due to my taste in music, clothing, and grade point average. I did not understand why it was bad to be smart and enjoy things that were not mainstream among my insular classmates. My parents refused to purchase trendy fashion for their preteen child because they did not have the income to spare. “If everyone jumps off a cliff, would you follow?” No, of course not. But I desperately wanted to be left alone and not teased because my parents would not buy me very specific pants. Not to mention that I had already gone through puberty, and shopping in the landscape of 100-percent cotton jeans was, in itself, a traumatic experience.
If you’re on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you’ve had too much
Of this life to hang on
Around this time my parents’ divorce was really ramping up, and between the conflicts at home and the bullying at school “Everybody Hurts” felt cathartic, sympathetic, comforting — like I was not the only person in the world enduring devastating emotional turmoil. The court proceedings lasted almost five years, and my childhood transitioned from one volatile household with two unstable adults to being shuffled between two volatile households with four unstable adults, plus stepsiblings and a new half-sister.
“Everybody Hurts” became a mantra inside those foam earphones. Sometimes everything is wrong; now it’s time to sing along. I recall having suicidal ideation at a very young age, likely because of the impossible situation that surrounded me and that I could not escape. This song helped me feel like it was normal to be upset and that I would make it through whatever this was and into whatever came next. I took comfort in my cassettes and my few friends, who helped me feel like I was not totally defective.
You don’t owe me anything
You don’t want this sympathy (Waste your breath)
Don’t you waste your breath (Waste your breath)
The fall of 1993 took me to high school and I consciously made many changes in an attempt to start fresh. I got a job at the local retirement home, and thanks to my meager paychecks and babysitting gigs the Sony Walkman transitioned into a Sony Discman that needed to be kept horizontal to function—a difficult task while I rollerbladed around town listening to my growing collection of new CDs.
The old boombox stuck around in my bedroom along with the cassettes, which became mostly useful during car rides, but Automatic for the People did not make the cut outside of the foam earphones. Its layered, melodic, complex sadness was for me alone.
I developed an aversion to hearing Michael Stipe’s voice because it brought forth so many bad memories of my difficult adolescence. I moved on to new albums and artists, often darker, angrier, and more depressing, and began smoking cigarettes and doing drugs—what I now realize were maladaptive coping mechanisms. By the time Monster was released in 1994, I was more interested in other alternative bands that R.E.M. had paved the way for. My former bullies were listening to “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” which made me irrationally upset. Monster seemed like it was trying too hard to fit into the grunge and new-alternative landscape. I filed R.E.M. into a black-and-white category of “no thank you” in my mind.
I will try not to breathe, this decision is mine, I have lived a full life
And these are the eyes that I want you to remember
Music is the soundtrack of my life, and for more than thirty years I have avoided listening to R.E.M. When a song came on the radio, I switched the station. Albums and songs possess the power to bring me back in time, flooding my mind with memories and my body with associated feelings. The early R.E.M. albums bring back the darkness of the basement. Out of Time and Automatic for the People bring back the sensations of extreme isolation, loneliness, emptiness and lack of control. My stepfather died in early 2026 after a long course of prostate cancer and dementia. I had not spoken with him since 2001 and did not break no-contact with my mother to send condolences.
In July when I first heard about R.E.M. Stories, I had an emotional reaction to even reading the band’s name.
I quietly deleted the emails twice a month, and when the latest one arrived I contemplated sending a nice note: “Hello, how are you? I hope you’re well, and please don’t send me any more emails about R.E.M.” Instead, in the spirit of following a suggestion from a past therapist, I decided to write out my thoughts and feelings instead of letting them swirl or fester inside me. That decision became this essay.
Midway through the first draft I looked more closely at the R.E.M.S. website and realized that what I was writing was very much in alignment with the project’s purpose: R.E.M. influenced people in so many ways and often altered their paths in life.
I was, in fact, not the only person who listened to their discography while having a tough time. Everybody hurts.
This contemplation forced me to return to that adolescent point in my life, and I now think I can actually listen to R.E.M. again. In fact, while writing this, I listened to every album up to Monster and gained a deeper appreciation for how their music affected me at that tender part of my path. R.E.M. made me aware of the intersection of art and politics in a proactive way. R.E.M. taught me who Andy Kaufman was and what performance art was in that sweet time before the internet, when the only way to find an answer was at the library. R.E.M. opened the way for me to get into other bands whose albums became the soundtrack for other periods of my life, both good and bad.
It’s the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine
MARIAH KARSON is an artist currently experiencing a midlife existential crisis. After years of travel in search of a place with good weather year-round and a pleasant natural setting, she relocated to São Jorge, Azores, in 2024, essentially throwing away her “career” to slip into nothingness — into the earth, into the sea, into the sky. Now that she needs multiple pairs of glasses to function, she is chasing sensation instead of aesthetics. She spends her time building the life she thinks she wants, with her hands in the soil, her skin marked with scrapes from thorns and dry branches, her body submerged in crystal natural pools, swaying with the tides.
Mariah’s website:
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