Artist: R.E.M.
Song: Me In Honey
Album: Out of Time
Released: 1991
Highest Chart Position: N/A
R.E.M.s album Out of Time turns 31 today. It’s safe to say that most people know Losing My Religion or the saccharine Shiny Happy People. Both were massive hits for the band. Few know that the band saved the best track for last.
After coming in off the road, the band decided to take a different turn for their 7th studio album. The band not only traded around instruments but made a distinct shift away from the politics in earlier albums. In an interview with SPIN magazine, lead singer Michael Stipe said:
And as a lyricist I shouldn’t be shackled to this image that every song I write has to be about the plight of the homeless or the environment. You can only go so far writing songs like that and get away with it. I can’t do it all the time, and I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into being a political folk singer in a rock band. Every song on this record is a love song. Anything political is just an undercurrent. That’s something we’ve just never done before. I’ve written love songs, but they were pretty obscure and oblique. These songs deal with every kind of love — except maybe love of country.
Out of Time’s songs in large part revolve around another universal theme- love. This was also the first time the band brought in other artists to collaborate with. Hip Hop artist KRS-One stops by to help drop the explosive opener Radio Song and B-52 Kate Pierson lends her melodic talent to Shiny Happy People.
But at the opposite end — and a world away — from Radio Song is another Stipe/Pierson duet, Me In Honey.
Radio Song talks about disillusionment. Near Wild Heaven laments the almost-were relationships that never quite get there (wherever “there” might mean to you).
Not released as a single, and written as a response to 10,000 Maniacs’ “Eat for Two,” Honey speaks to the male perspective on pregnancy but in Stipe’s cryptic fashion.
“Baby’s got some new rules
Baby said she’s had it with me
There’s a fly in the honey
And baby’s got a baby with me
That’s a part, that’s a part of me”
It’s an odd juxtaposition- something as potentially fraught as dealing with new life coupled with an expansive melody, but that’s what makes the band so great.
And sometimes they save the best for last.
Have a favorite song off this album, or just a favorite REM song in general? Comment below!
Thanks for being here,
Kevin—
This article originally appeared here.
Imitation of Life remains the single track that I come back to time and time again.
So good!