Release date: 12/04/83 | Length: 3:03 | Release: Murmur | SuE: #105

Got to punch, Right on target

So much of R.E.M.’s oeuvre has been a stubborn refusal to fit into any prescribed genre. Whilst ostensibly they’ve always been a rock band, it’s never been possible to definitively pigeonhole them into one category, and debut album Murmur confounded the critics upon release in 1983. It was a mysterious and enigmatic record, difficult to unwrap and figure out its identity. There was not the aggression found with alternative rock, and it was all too obscured and obfuscated to be jangle pop. It was its own thing.

Post-punk was another label thrown at the band, and on the evidence of 9-9, it’s tough to say that this was unwarranted. Mike Mills’ opening bass line is an elegant thing, but then it’s all thrown out of the water with a spiky three minutes of sharp, unfinished guitar licks. It’s as if, for a few minutes, we’ve been transported to a Gang of Four record, with the angular sounds coming from Peter Buck’s guitar a sound of frustration and letting rip.

Maybe it’s the jarring music that also makes 9-9 one of the most impossible songs to decipher across the group’s whole discography. Kudos to whoever has accurately scribed most of Michael Stipe’s words down, since R.E.M.’s lyrics were never printed in LP liner notes back in the day, a practice that continued right up until Monster I believe. Harder still is interpreting them: ‘Twisting tongues, Got a stripe, Down his back’. There’s definitely words and noise being made from 1:43-2:03, and I’d hazard a guess that not even Michael knows what’s said.

This all leaves 9-9 in a rather precarious state. It’s the peak of Murmur‘s confusion and mystery, but the lyrics are so far flung on the cryptic cline that it’s such a challenge to even grab onto anything in the song. Nice as an anomaly on an already anomalous album, but weak as a standalone.