Release date: 28/07/1986 | Length: 3:33 | Release: Lifes Rich Pageant | SuE: #86

Overlooking with a hollow eye

Bluntly, What If We Give It Away? is not one of my favourite R.E.M. songs. In fact, it’s possibly my least favourite track from Lifes Rich Pageant, so this will likely be a brief entry. It’s not that I think the song is bad per se, it’s just forgettable. When you compare What If We Give It Away? to other songs on the album, it pales in comparison. Begin the Begin is aggressive, Superman is fun, Fall on Me is timeless, I Believe is barnstorming. What If We Give It Away? befits none of those adjectives.

Much like a lot of R.E.M. songs, this track has its origins several years earlier, and was doing the rounds in live sets in 1981 under the moniker ‘Get on Their Way’. Michael Stipe is known for having unintelligible lyrics, but on a bootlegged show from May of that year, I do believe them to actually be noises, rather than words.

It’s interesting to note how similar the song’s structure is, with little changes (lyrics aside) after laying dormant for five years.