Release date: 08/85 | Length: 3:17 | Release: Document | UK: #16; US: #9 | SuE: #11

A simple prop, to occupy my time

The One I Love was such a pivotal song in R.E.M.’s career. Before this, they’d had a smattering of commercial success, but they’d yet to have that all-important breakthrough required to really infiltrate the consciousness of the masses. Cue a simple song that sounds nice, but in true R.E.M. fashion was anything but.

To look at this from the idle listener, this is a love song. After all, the opening line is a sweet dedication – ‘This one goes out to the one I love’. There’s no need to listen any further, just accept this for the sweet rocker that it is.

Now to look at the song for what it actually is, a bitter sideswipe at a former lover. The following line gives us a sense of this, and for those who kept listening after the opening line may be a little perplexed about how the song is to continue – ‘This one goes out to the one I left behind’. And then the killer line – ‘A simple prop, to occupy my time’. It’s brutal.

Even though without this song, the future history of the band would have been very different, this song isn’t a favourite of mine. It feels like a classic rock song, but not a classic R.E.M. song. It’s the favourite R.E.M. song of people who know little outside of Losing My Religion and Everybody Hurts, which isn’t to deny that it’s a great song, but to me it exists in a realm outside of the vintage R.E.M. tracks. The drumbeat/guitar combo to open the song doesn’t feel very R.E.M., if that’s really a thing. The only part of the song that’s truly great is Michael Stipe screaming ‘Fire’ during the chorus, and cryptic and unconventional refrain that’s symptomatic of what R.E.M. were.

It sounds like an 80s song and it’s difficult to shake off the fact that this song would’ve been on every US commercial radio back then. For a further taste of how 80s this song is, it reached the US Billboard top 10 when Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven is a Place on Earth took the crown. In the UK, it wasn’t until Out of Time made R.E.M. household names that The One I Love truly made an impact with a timely re-release.