Release date: 07/03/2011 | Length: 2:48 | Release: Collapse into Now | SuE: #218

It’s just like me to overstay my welcome man

Strip away the vocals and what do you have? It’s a rock song, plain and simple. Sure, it’s a good rock song, one that scratches an itch, but R.E.M. aren’t really known for plain and simple. Collapse into Now wasn’t their most innovative record musically speaking, but even All the Best might be a little too straightforward for R.E.M.. Maybe that’s why it was not a popular pick by listeners for Slicing Up Eyeballs’ huge poll in 2017; only a handful of album tracks were less popular.

Very few people picked up on R.E.M.’s dissolution as a band before the news came in September 2011, despite it being decided internally for some time. In hindsight, the signs were there. The band are waving goodbye on the album cover, the record is littered with references to their impending demise, and this song’s title is a common sign-off. Perhaps people were too wary of interpreting Stipe’s lyrics literally, after all these years of obfuscation. “I’ll give it one more time, I’ll show the kids how to do it”. It’s obvious isn’t it? Maybe this song would’ve gained more recognition at the time were the departure of the band known, as All the Best got scant attention in contemporary reviews.

It’s a great vocal performance, and despite my criticisms of its plainness earlier, I’m a sucker for no-frills alternative rock. In the verses, with its screechy, frequently curtailed riffs, it sounds like…Nine Black Alps? Idlewild? Feeder? Someone in that early 00s minor canon. We have a more obvious point of reference in the chorus, as Peter Buck reprises the riff from The One I Love for a brief moment.

Things come thick and fast in All the Best, as it’s over and done with by three minutes. By the end of the second verse Bill Rieflin’s smashing the snare like we’re already reaching a crescendo, but there’s more to give. It turns into such a ferocious barrage of guitars and drums, the only drawback being that this isn’t why you tune into R.E.M.. It’s also surprisingly early in the album for a palate cleansing rocker, as these types of songs often slot in early on side two. All the Best is enjoyable, but perhaps it was a swing and a miss here. Was the song supposed to provoke a conversation, and get people murmuring about the shock end of R.E.M.? If so, it failed, making its importance only relevant in hindsight.

Release date: 07/03/2011 | Length: 3:03 | Release: Collapse Into Now | SuE: #197

The winners write the rule books
The histories and lullabies

The most striking thing about R.E.M.’s penultimate song from final album Collapse Into Now is the title: Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I. It’s delightfully cryptic, and does refer to something rather than being arbitrarily obtuse. Neil Young’s song Pocahontas (recorded in the mid-1970s) ends with the following line, mirrored in the title of R.E.M.’s track:

Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me

Michael Stipe’s voice drifts across the song much like Young’s does, slipping into a forlorn loneliness, only to be saved by Mike Mills’ echoes in the chorus: ‘Down down’. Here Stipe asks Young for advice, a meeting of two great rock minds. What’s the advice? Well that’s where the trail dries up, as R.E.M. revert to their tried and tested method of sleep: ‘Help me off to sleep, Take me deep again’. It’s a highly effective trick, conjuring up the sombre tone of Automatic for the People, whilst the mandolin plucks sound like The Wrong Child many years earlier, when R.E.M. were nervously experimenting.

This unassuming tune is more of a reward for long-time listeners than a explosive blast. It’s endearingly downbeat, but offers enough intrigue and kind throwbacks to succeed.

Release date: 07/03/11 | Length: 5:46 | Release: Collapse into Now | SuE: #197

I am made by my times, I am a creation of now

One would’ve thought that Blue, essentially R.E.M.’s farewell song, would’ve left a bit more of a legacy than it has done. It’s the final track off their final album, but I suppose a reason for this is that it’s not a rip-roaring send off, but a muted and understated affair that blends Country Feedback and E-Bow the Letter. 

It has the delivery of the old Out of Time classic, a spoken word dialogue that feels off-the-cuff and more often than not reels off thoughts coming out of Michael Stipe’s head: ‘I don’t mark my time with dates, holidays, fate, wisdom, luck, karma, or whatever’s convenient’ and ‘Breathing with you, touch, change, shift, allow air, window open, drift, drift away, into now’ most prominently exemplifying this. You’re almost anticipating Michael singing ‘It’s crazy what you could’ve had’ after each line.

It’s thankful that the idle strumming of the guitar and reverb that hovers over the entire track pushes Michael’s vocals to the background, because otherwise it would feel too much like trying to resuscitate Country Feedback. Patti’s Smith’s brilliant reprise of her previous work with R.E.M. is not the only reason for the comparison with E-Bow the Letter, as the moody music is almost a mirror to 15 years previous. It’s also worth noting that in addition to the guitars and Patti Smith, there’s a lyrical throwback to the 1996 single: ‘Subway, 4am’ is an abridged memory of ‘The bus ride, I went to write this, 4am, this letter’, purportedly about Michael’s late friend River Phoenix.

Whilst the song doesn’t exactly feel melancholic, it’s certainly introspective and a fitting cast back to the band’s life and career. We see this most from the final lines that Michael Stipe sings on an R.E.M. track:

I want Whitman proud, Patti Lee proud, My brothers proud, My sisters proud, I want me, I want it all, I want sensational, Irresistible
This is my time and I am thrilled to be alive
Living. Blessed. I understand
Twentieth century collapse, into now

There we also have the album’s title, Collapse Into Now, immortalised in words, something that’s rarely seen in an R.E.M. song. It feels like a tying up of loose ends, and pronouncement that the narrator is complete and content, and ready to bring this part of one’s life to an end. Whilst Michael has always in the past drew a line between the singer and the song, this does come across as richly autobiographical.

One would now think that the song is over, but in fact Patti Smith delivers the final original verse heard on an R.E.M. album, as the guitars die down and replaced by a sparse piano passage and the song’s title repeated deep in the mix. Bizarrely enough, in James Franco’s music video for this (released over a year later), as Michael finishes off his last line, we’re treated to a glamour shoot with Lindsay Lohan for a reason that’s still lost on me.

…and we’re still not done. The song fades away only to be picked up again by a typical R.E.M. riff, which is in fact a return of the album’s opening song Discoverer. The fuses together works remarkably well, when one considers the stark contrast of the powerful harmonies of the opener, and the improvised fuzz of the swansong.

It’s not a song that has an immediate or lasting impact, but in the moment Blue is one of the stronger tracks from Collapse into Now, and for a song that effectively ends R.E.M. as a band, it’s difficult to see how they could’ve done much better.