Click to listen to R.E.M.'s 'We All Go Back To Where We Belong'
The last R.E.M. song (for now?), from the band's upcoming greatest-hits LP, sounds like an extra cut from the Collapse Into Now sessions – but it suits their breakup perfectly. Michael Stipe sings about missing the taste of the ocean on your skin over gentle, orchestral folk rock that recalls the shady-margined utopianism of mid- Sixties California pop (and their own Out of Time). Stipe sounds appropriately frayed, but beautifully so, as he pushes toward that emotional Maginot line where memories dissolve into dreams; it's where they always did their best work.
