Bad Day — R.E.M.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3SSegq9USY

R.E.M. has ever baffled me, something like poetry, with political words but impossibly opaque intentions; liberal, perhaps, with a touch of hippie in there. Michael Stipe's lyrics are perfect in verse, structure, rhyme, tonal poetry that folds in upon itself, wry and smart and succinct, with no easy answers or explanations. This song is about the media, ostensibly — in reality, it's about the joys of listening to tight, smart, rhyming lyrics; the tonality of a fine voice and complementary chords. It's a pop song — the timbre stirs a desire and the lyrics fulfill it. But rather than the lyrics being too simple, too vague, they're instead inscrutable. Some of R.E.M.'s earlier stuff is just thick as all hell, and it's hard to tell if, like good poetry or hip-hop, it means something, it's worth pursuing and understanding, or if it's just poetry, rhyming and carrying on, with form but no content.