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.

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• Rob Sheffield Says Goodbye to R.E.M.
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• R.E.M. in the Real World – Rolling Stone's 1987 Cover Story
• R.E.M.'s 15 Greatest Videos

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.