It’s a hazy time in my memory - the early 80s. My parents were splitting up - and getting back together - and splitting up again. I spent a lot of time with my head in a book, sitting on the green carpet of the bedroom I shared with my sister, leaning against the twin bedspread my mother made for me. Green gingham with white eyelet trim, a cursive “A” lovingly stitched on the side; it’s doppelganger across the room emblazoned with an “E” for Emily. The white shutters my mother painted and installed on our windows let in beams of Louisiana sun that hit the matching pillow shams in rigid lines. The desk that matched the white bedroom suite my mother bought in installments from Dixie Furniture sat under the window that faced Mr. Poole’s house. Its drawers held stationary we used to write letters to Grandmama Butler in Oak Grove, home of magical rolls, biscuits, and tomatoes. Everything was very organized - everything had its place. A small, brown radio sat in its place on the upper left corner of the desk, a gift from our Auntie and Uncle B. Auntie, our Grandmama’s baby sister, had recently died a horrific death from cancer. A death so traumatic Mama wouldn’t let us visit her in the hospital, even though we loved Auntie almost as much as we loved Grandmama. Everytime I turned on the radio, I thought of Auntie.
It was an A.M. radio - so the only “good” station was KMLB. Every Saturday, I tuned in to hear Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. One Saturday, I was laying on that ugly green carpet, trying to ignore my life and family tearing itself apart, watching the dust drift through the sunbeams, and Casey mentioned a new band with an interesting name that was getting noticed. They weren’t on the charts yet - but look out for them. Then he played “Radio Free Europe.” I sat up and turned up the radio as loud as it would go. I may have blown the speaker.I waited, and waited, to hear that song again. I called and requested it. Nope. I guess it was too weird for Monroe, Louisiana, in 1981.
Fast forward and I’m living in Georgia in the mid-80s, not too far from Athens, actually. I knew R.E.M. was from the area but still didnt’ hear them on the radio. I just assumed they never made it. Then, someone’s brother who was a freshman at UGA forgot a mixtape one weekend which found its way to the high school. There they were. R.E.M. Bolt of lightning. Most of the songs were off Life’s Rich Pageant, which some consider a delineator in R.E.M.’s discography - the boundary between “good” R.E.M. and “new” R.E.M. I just thought it was awesome. My senior year, R.E.M. finally broke out of the college radio scene and hit the mainstream with The One I Love. That Chistams, December, 1987, Melissa gave me a cassette of Document. I still have it somewhere.
The closest I’ve ever had to an epiphany moment with music was on that lazy Saturday afternoon in 1981, hiding from the world in my room, with my radio. R.E.M.’s sound was different, so new compared to everything else at that time. I found solace and inspiration in their music. They were my Beatles, in a way, the soundtrack to my adolescence and young adulthood, when my world was turning inside out. They were nostalgic, poetic, intellectual. They reveled in ambiguity and were unabashedly political. It’s hard to pick a favorite song by R.E.M., but this is in my top five. And I do believe the poles are shifting. And change is what I believe in.
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