R.E.M. Look Back

7 Sydney 1995
[ Photograph by Tom Sheehan ]

Buck: That was the Monster tour. The playing part was good. But Bill almost died. [Berry suffered a double brain aneurysm in Switzerland and underwent emergency surgery. He recovered, and the tour resumed.] I think it made him rethink a lot about his life. He never toured again. By the end, everyone was burned out. In a way, that picture says, "I'll be glad to get this over with."

Mills: We'd been going for fifteen years. Then life caught up with us. If you brush death like that, it plants a seed in your mind – you can't be twenty-two forever.

Stipe: There was a period when it was hit-and-miss – nine days when Bill could have died. He came through it intact. But something was lost and changed when he left [in 1997]. There was a chemistry we had as a four-piece; we've come to another chemistry, but it took us so long to do it.

8 Miami 1992
[ Photograph by Anton Corbijn ]

Stipe: That was in Miami. It's on the inside sleeve of Automatic for the People [1992]. I was being swept out to sea and drowning [laughs]. Anton is much taller than me, and I was in deeper water than he was. There was a strong undertow. I had just been engulfed by a wave, and was gasping for air when he got the shot. But Anton has taken some of the best and most generous images of me. I will do anything he asks me to. His eye reigns supreme. I was thrilled the first time he came to Georgia in 1988 to photograph our little band. I knew who he had worked with – U2, Joy Division – and that was a big deal to me.

9 Los Angeles 1994
[ Photograph by Anton Corbijn ]

Stipe: I'm dropping my pants in Los Angeles. It was after Madonna's Sex book came out, with the picture of her hitchhiking [nude]. That's Sunset Boulevard in the background. Nobody stopped. But I got some good looks.

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

More Song Stories entries »

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