In what can only be called a triumphant hometown showing,
R.E.M. concluded their North American tour Saturday night in Atlanta under a balmy, clearing Summer solstice sky. With so many thousands of people -- stretched across generations and the great lawn at Lakewood Amphitheatre alike -- there was something communal, universal and humbling about this crowd gathered to see the heroes of what was once called "college rock." What had been "independent" music has become mainstream, and, in this case, we feel fine about that.
R.E.M. has long been a political band, outspoken and murmuring at once. American culture, foreign policy, human rights and environmental concerns have been woven through the band's voice from the beginning. Fashion is not the objective; meaning always has been. Today, R.E.M.'s early songs seem suddenly to have come of age; they are more modern and relevant than ever, and many seem purely prophetic.
Consider 1992’s "
Ignoreland," introduced by Stipe & Company for the politically uninitiated (or simply the young) as "something we wrote during the Reagan-Bush years about the Iran-Contra scandal." The terms of public political discussion seem barely to have changed: Bush...Iran...Scandal. The lyrics show why:
Marched into the capital brooding duplicitous, wicked and able, media-ready...
The information nation took their clues from all the sound-bite gluttons…
T.V. tells a million lies. The paper's terrified to report
anything that isn't handed on a presidential spoon.
Indeed, the evening was about more than music. Politics in the digital age was an underlying and unifying theme. The band was surrounded by video monitors (typical enough) but used them in self-conscious yet not ironic ways. A variety of screens showed Stipe in Hi-Def, LED, black-and-white, and color-manipulated forms all at once.
Real-time, digital mash-ups of live broadcast and camera viewfinder made the point clear: this show was about media, and the production and consumption of it (music included). Captured image. Manipulated image. Broadcast image. Live image. Which were real? Which were compelling? Which were to be trusted? Microphone. Megaphone. Loudspeaker. Crowd. Who had the pulpit? How many voices? Who could be heard?
These seem like particularly important questions in an election season, if we are to avoid repeating the painful lessons learned. The Georgia natives reminded us that the first round of schooling didn’t stick, and followed up "Ignoreland" with an appropriate sequel of sorts, "Houston," about the current administration's pitiful handling of Hurricane Katrina:
Houston is filled with promise
Laredo is a beautiful place
Galveston sings like that song that I loved
Its meaning has not been erased.
Where Bush I's reign allowed and encouraged us to "ignore" the things that wouldn't add up, Bush II's goes further into the nihilistic: just remove the offending facts altogether. It is fine for New Orleans to have "its meaning...erased," so long as Bush's Texas is still filled with promise.
Another highlight of the evening, "Bad Day," makes the band’s uncomfortable and political engagement with modern media unavoidably clear:
A Public service announcement followed me home the other day
I paid it nevermind. Go away...
Free Teflon whitewashed presidency
We're sick of being jerked around...
Broadcast me a joyful noise...
The papers wouldn't lie!
I sigh. Not one more…
Stipe provides answers to the media-meaning meltdown questions he asks in “Living Well’s The Best Revenge,” finally pushing back on the “spin” and “talking points,” and taking control of the camera himself, as we see on stage and in song:
Well, I'm not one to sit and spin
Living well's the best revenge...
Don't turn your talking points on me, history will set me free...
Well, I forgive but I don't forget
You work it out, let's hear that argument again.
Camera three...Go now!
It is fair to say R.E.M. has more than a passing interest in the political and cultural meaning constructed by the interplay of media and music. This is, after all, the group that penned “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?,” about
Dan Rather’s infamous Park Avenue assault. It is not a pro-media song, yet the medium of song extends its life yet further.
The formation and sharing of our own political knowledge, the free use (and manipulation) of media, and the ability to interpret and comment upon the veracity of authority are essential (perhaps Constitutional) issues for us all, not radical screams from a far field. This helps explain why R.E.M. has lasted and still connects across generations today.
Yet, in this happy crowd there were more than a few "boos" at Stipe's politics coming from people who had paid high dollar to see and hear the band.
One beer-soaked gentleman nearby the author shouted "McCain rules" and "God Bless George Bush" as he danced to R.E.M.'s political drumbeat. He howled disappointment just before chanting the chorus of none other than "Ignoreland" itself ("Defense, defense, defense!" with all irony lost).
This same frat boy cum flip-flop-and-khaki-cool middle-aged man also serenaded his lucky lady: "This one goes out to the one I love...a simple prop to occupy my time." (Kiss on top of head).
One imagines he understands "I Will Always Love You" as something other than a song of devastation. And that "Every Breath You Take" does not register as a haunting confession of dark obsession. He was the embodiment of
Nirvana's fan memorialized in "In Bloom":
He's the one
Who likes all the pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means.
To be sure, R.E.M.'s music is to be enjoyed, not merely studied as political polemic. But the implications are profound if even a small percentage of a die-hard crowd is living in a space where words and meaning are so divorced from each other. Certainly, it suggests a much larger mass of "meaningless" life out there, and something about the American psychology of escapism to Ignoreland.
Consider the lessons taught by the hideous anti-hero of Brett Easton Ellis's controversial novel,
American Psycho. Patrick Bateman sees the world only as brand labels and "surface, surface, surface." Like those dancing to R.E.M. while protesting the lyrics, Bateman lives in a world where words (labels) no longer mean anything; they are merely consumed. Not surprisingly, he also believes that Phil Collins' vapid lyrics are profound.
The hopelessness that comes from a literally meaning-less life turns Bateman psychopathic. He abuses, tortures and mutilates women in unimaginable ways (they, too, are just "simple props to occupy [his] time"). Like Stipe, Easton Ellis is trying to show that everyday life can and should be -- is -- more meaningful, if we are aware of the words, the lyrics.
Though dismissed as "misogynistic" and "vile" by critics, American Psycho should be a feminist’s friend: the torture scenes show what "drilling," "nailing," "screwing," "banging," "hammering," and "slamming" a woman really looks like. These sexual metaphors -- the metaphors of too many oblivious, serenading, flip-flopped young men at concerts -- are undone, the original meaning of their imagery restored. They become finally, again, grotesque in their truth. (We will leave the infamous rat and beheading scenes to a different discussion, but they, too, prove the same point, largely regarding the objectifcation of women during oral sex).
Was the dancing dope at R.E.M. a psychopath? Was his life less meaningful that it could be? Was he unaware of his own status as pitiable, public fool? Some of us, it seems, can hardly stand to see the meaning of what is before us, especially if it is a mirror. Doing so would require tough questions: Media is manipulated? Authority might be untrustworthy? Language is powerful and destructive? I’m not saying what I mean? I’m not self-determined? More beer, please.
R.E.M. answered these questions with the careful and purposeful use of word, music, image and digital technology, helping us all to see things as both constructed and clear, keeping us at a safe distance from the fate of Patrick Bateman. If we listened it was impossible to stay on the "surface, surface, surface." Questioning the structure of our stories (political, cultural, personal) and voice of our storytellers (politicians, media, each other) is a required part of living the worthwhile "examined life." Without it, we are doomed to be psychos in Ignoreland. (And, yes, Stipe made an overt, heartfelt plea that everyone vote for Barack Obama, that everything was at stake).
Like all great storytellers and commentators, Stipe knows how to frame his tale. Perhaps that is why he opened the show with “These Days,” an early-on political rallying cry packaged as feel good tune:
All the people gather
Fly to carry each his burden
We are young despite the years we are concern
We are hope despite the times
All of the sudden, these days
Happy throngs, take this joy wherever, wherever you go.
And, of course, he made sure the band closed its North American homecoming with “Man on the Moon”:
If you believe they put a man on the moon…a man on the moon.
In so doing, Stipe deftly connects us to one of the very earliest, produced and universal political broadcasts: one of the Cold War and America’s supremacy not only to “get there first,” but to
send back the footage as well. Let the age of modern conspiracy theories – the questions, the doubts – about what the media has shown begin. It brought the argument into a perfect circle.
But before closing with this, Stipe and R.E.M. bring things to a near stop – a rest – to make sure we hear the near magic of this Georgia night. A final request that we get the point, learn the lesson, and let the meaning of it all do what needs doing. They seem to know who is dancing and singing next to me, they seem to know the American Psycho, and the American psychology of escapism to Ingoreland:
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night.
I’m not sure all these people understand.
To quote REM: "We can reach our destination, but we're still a ways away."