u/Icy_Obligation_3014

Has anyone seen As You Like It at the Globe theatre? Directed by Sean Holmes (who directed Romeo and Juliet as a Western last year) and Charlie Josephine (they also played Orlando).

The setting was an 18th century court which was an intriguing idea to me. I thought it suited the play well and added a great element to the gender-swapping aspects of the play because in the 18th century men dressed so pretty anyway.

The absolute star of the show for me though was Jonnie Broadbent as Touchstone. Together with Audrey, he was so, so funny. I couldn't stop laughing out loud for real in several places.

I've never seen, read, or studied As You Like It before but I was super excited because my favourites are Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, and Midsummer Night's Dream, and it contains a lot of the elements I enjoy most about all. It doesn't have such a satisfying plot as Twelfth Night or the same incredible poetic language as Midsummer, but I still had a fantastic time.

I would love to know what people more familiar with the play thought of this interpretation. And are there any productions available to watch that anyone can especially recommend? I'd love to watch it performed in a few different ways.

A different writer and singer could easily make Old Man Kensey feel almost cruel. We are laughing at Old Man Kensey a little bit, aren't we? And it's also quite sad, tragic even.

But at the same time, there's something very warm and affectionate in the song too.

I have no idea if this would ever have been intended by Michael Stipe, but in a way, the character reminds me a bit of him. There is an interview during the Monster years where Peter Buck talks about Michael and h says something like "he wants to be the front man but he hates his voice." It could almost be a lyric. He wanted to be a rock star but was painfully shy. He wants to be a singer, first he has to learn to talk.

Even though it is gently making fun of him, I feel that ultimately like we are rooting for Old Man Kensey a bit. Pfft, learning to stand, or count, or read? Or talk publicly or sing in front of people? Don't let that stand in your way!

We all love an R.E.M. bridge... what are the best ones?

I would say:

Driver 8

World Leader Pretend

7 Chinese Bros

So. Central Rain

Shaking Through

Electrolite

Old Man Kensey

I have been listening to Out of Time a lot this week, really appreciating the depth and beauty on this album.

I find Out of Time to be an incredibly beautiful album that holds together really well despite being so varied. The songwriting is outstanding. It never comes out as a favourite album for me but that's only because they have so many others that top it. But it still really is incredibly good. I wonder if it gets overlooked because it's easy to let the biggest singles define it. Like most great albums, the singles feel different within the context of the whole album than as individual songs.

Michael Stipe said at the time that it was all love songs and he talked about the lack of “intelligent” love songs in pop culture. He's said in interviews much later on that they weren't really love songs, he just said that for something to say. But he had a point. I count 6 love songs on the track listing, which is loads for R.E.M. (By ‘love songs’ I mean songs that are about romantic love, but also sex, desire, affairs, so not necessarily *love* but non-platonic.)

Low, Country Feedback, Losing My Religion etc are not like many love songs you hear, either in 1991 or now, really. They are the opposite of pop songs full of (often very gendered) cliches. (Which can be fun! But never been a thing that R.E.M. does, which is probably why hearing them cover Superman throws me a bit every time I hear it, because to me it feels like exactly that type of song.)

The 60s influence is all over this album and that intrigues me too. I have read Stipe talking about how his education about sex and relationships when he was younger came from the spirit of the 60s, ‘free love’, and sex outside of the stigma and shame of previous decades… and then the 80s, AIDs, and Reagan happened and that all got ripped away from people who had only just got to experience it.

I have no idea if Stipe had any of this in his mind, consciously or otherwise, when he wrote these lyrics in response to the sound of that music. But that's what it makes me think about. Musically, it evokes the 60s, including the joyful sugary sounds, and then there's this sombre melancholy that hangs over it all, especially the Stipe lyrics. Even the upbeat shiny pop songs have a shadow hanging over them. It's like nostalgia for something that maybe was never real in the first place.

I don't mean to say that the songs literally are about any of that, but more that the sideways look sex and relationships against a backdrop of a very 60s sound might be where some of the yearning melancholy comes from.

(Thanks anyone who made it all the way down to the end of my middle of the night ramblings!).

There are some R.E.M. songs that are completely transformed live, even some which are already fantastic on record, but where the live version just elevates the song further or brings out a completely new dynamic.

Maps and Legends, Walk Unafraid, the Wake-up Bomb, So Fast So Numb, Imitation of Life all feel like that for me. (And So Fast, So Numb is easily one of my favourites already.)

Are there any songs which unlocked for you when you heard them live (in a recording or video or in person)?