So I’ve been listening to some pretty somber music today — Red House Painters, Scud Mountain Boys, Tindersticks. But I decided to put on something a little peppier and threw on R.E.M.’s Eponymous. Fine, until track 12 hits:
That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes and aeroplane…world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs…wire in a fire representing seven games…a government for hire and a combat site…
With the furies breathing down your neck…team by team, reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped…save yourself, serve yourself, world serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed…you vitriolic patriotic slam fight bright light feeling pretty psyched…
Six o’clock TV hour, don’t get caught in foreign towers…slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn…locking in uniform, book-burning, blood-letting, every motive escalate, automotive incinerate…light a candle, light a votive…uh oh, this means no fear…A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies…offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline…The other night I dreamt of knives…You symbiotic patriotic slam…
It’s the end of the world as we know it — and I feel fine.
Strange — it never sounded quite so menacing on previous listens. Maybe Stipe is the real Nostradamus?