“Losing My Religion was a mistake. It should never have been a hit single. The way it was composed is very strange.
” After being misinterpreted, banned by the Catholic Church, and hated by the singer himself, “I've already heard it, it's horrible” it became one of the most successful songs in history, making that the lives of these 4 young Americans would never be the same again. Today I'm going to tell you the enigmatic story of Losing My Religion, by the band R. E.
M. Eu sou Guilherme, and you're on DecifraHITS. With a title that, if translated literally, means “Losing My Religion”, Losing My Religion made many believe that it would be a kind of anti-religion anthem, which led to bans by the Catholic church.
"The song is a little mysterious, and it's a bit sinister, but you don't really know why. " The vocalist, who had to be completely naked to record the song, regrets to this day having changed a certain part of the lyrics. And the music video, which won a Grammy and several VMA awards, was never understood by most people.
But I discovered that it is a true work of art with so many hidden layers that, by the end of this video, your mind will end up exploding. But despite the extremely high quality of this song, the band REM itself did not expect all this impact. “Stop and think: you have a 5-minute song, without a chorus that you can distinguish, and the main instrument is a mandolin.
. . Why would anyone play it on the radio?
” And when the band said they wanted to release Losing My Religion as the album's first single, they faced fierce resistance from the record company. "Did they want to destroy their own career on purpose? " "We thought: Let's make an album that's going to destroy our career, and it's going to be cool.
" But why did Losing My Religion cause so much controversy? What is the meaning of this song? And what was so strange about its composition?
To understand this, we need to go back to 1987. That year, the band was exhausted. They had spent most of the year on a long and stressful tour in support of the band's sixth album (Green, due out the following year) and therefore needed to rest.
But if you work with music or another form of art, you should know that it is precisely in these moments of rest that the most creative ideas arise. Peter Buck, the band's guitarist, was exactly that kind of person. He had just turned 31, and after almost 10 years of playing the same instrument, Peter felt it was time to try something new: he didn't want to be “the guitar guy” anymore, or in the words of his friend Michael Stipe: " I think he was afraid of becoming one of those asshole guitar players, I think that was the term he always used.
" Peter's hobby as a musician was to challenge himself to play instruments he had never played before, and one of those instruments was a mandolin, which he had purchased during the band's last tour. One day, Peter Buck was on the couch in his living room watching the Atlanta Braves game, his hometown's baseball team, and when it was time for break, he decided to pick up the mandolin to learn how to play. Peter left a cassette recorder running while he played the instrument, so that he could later listen to the recording and find flaws in his technique.
And while practicing, he ended up playing something interesting. “I was playing around with the scales and this came out: “ Yeah, that melody you hear throughout the song Losing My Religion is the sound of someone learning to play an instrument. The birth of the song was undoubtedly something mystical, but you can't make a complete song with a single instrument.
The album Green was about to be recorded, and this would be a strong candidate, but Peter decided to hide his work from the band for some time. He felt that this new song would be better used on the group's seventh album, Out Of Time, which was scheduled to be released in 1991. In the summer of 1990, recording for Out Of Time began, and it was finally time for Peter to present his new idea for the rest of the band.
The first to hear the melody was drummer Bill Berry, who despite having loved the song, sound, he thought the melody was so soft and delicate that putting a drum over it could ruin the work. As a solution, Bill Berry thought of playing another lighter percussion, like the conga, giving the song a Latin touch. But in the end they ended up realizing that they needed to put in a little more energy, and that's when Bill Berry came in with everything on the drums.
Then it was time for bassist Mike Mills to step in, but he was having problems. "Bill was able to create a beat quickly, but I couldn't think of anything. I wanted it to be simple, but I didn't want it to be boring.
" The mandolin sounded too high-pitched for Mike Mill's bass to even make any difference to the melody, and he needed to think of a solution. "It's a strange song to try to write a base for, it's weird. I wanted to get to the point of having the pleasure of playing it, and to have that pleasure, I had to write my base.
" The inspiration came when he remembered John McVie, the bassist for Fleetwood Mac, a rock band from the 60s. “I really admired Fleetwood Mac, and John McVie's bass lines were always simple, but melodic. They elevated the songs rather than limiting them.
Thinking about them helped me create the ideal bass line for this song. ” Despite this, Peter Buck still felt that the song had a hollow feel, as there was nothing filling the empty space between the high pitched sound of the mandolin and the low sounds of the bass. That's when they remembered a guy who had done some work for the band as an auxiliary guitarist during the last tour: guitarist Peter Holsapple.
They asked Holsapple to fill this void with his guitar, and it worked very well. The instrumental part of the demo was already complete, but the icing on the cake was still missing: the voice full of feelings from vocalist Michael Stipe. "You couldn't allow yourself to get too excited about something because it wasn't a real song until Michael sang it.
And you never know if he's going to be inspired or not when he gets a song. " After practicing the melody for so long, the band was already humming some ideas of what the lyrics could be, and they had even created a provisional title for the song: “Sugar Cane”, sugar cane in English. Well, nothing like what she was about to become.
But the band's lead singer didn't want to be influenced by his colleagues' ideas and, like the bassist, Michael Stipe wanted to create his own art, a lyric with his true feelings, and that would really inspire him to sing. So he asked the band to record just the instrumentals on a demo tape, and took the tape to his room so he could think about the lyrics. Michael was hyperactive, his creative process involved standing and walking in wide circles in his room while the melody played in the background and ideas flowed into his mind.
This allowed him to enter an almost meditative or trance-like state. As ideas came up, he typed the lyrics on a typewriter and recorded his voice on a cassette tape. Thanks to this state of mind, the lyric creation process was so quick that Michael Stipe can barely remember the details.
"I don't remember writing Losing My Religion. That's a good sign, because it indicates that it flowed from within me. " “The song was written in 5 minutes.
To me, 'Losing My Religion' feels like some kind of archetype that was floating in space that we managed to lasso. ” said Peter Buck, who also reported being incredibly moved by hearing Michael Stipe's vocals in conjunction with the song. As for Michael himself, however, we cannot say the same thing.
He literally hated his own voice. "Michael always gets embarrassed when he hears these demos. And I always tell him: Michael, this is a thing of the past.
It's not going to change people's minds about us. " But as they said, this was just a demo. Now that everyone knew what they had to do, they needed to schedule a day in the studio to record the final version of the song.
They went home, and each kept a copy of the demo for about two weeks, so they could reflect on what they had done and think about possible improvements before the official recording. Michael Stipe, A perfectionist like any brilliant artist, he wouldn't accept anything less than perfection, but to do that he would need to find the perfect balance in the emotion of his voice, so that it sounded as true as possible, without being artificial. "For an artist with an emotional voice like mine, it's easy to end up overdoing it and end up allowing a lyric or song to be more than it really is.
And that would be a betrayal of my audience and myself. " The day of final recording finally arrived, and production was not easy at all. While Peter Buck recorded the mandolin part in just 1 take, Michael Stipe had a hard time getting it recorded.
“It was always difficult for me to present an idea for the first time. When I went into the studio to record the vocals, I kicked everyone out of the room except our producer and the sound engineer. ” Michael was determined to record his voice in just 1 take, as according to him, it would lose its essence if it was repeated several times.
But the sound engineer was hungover, and that wasn't making things any easier for Michael. "I remember being very frustrated with the engineer. Because I felt like he wasn't paying attention.
I'm not a bad person, but I become bad in moments like this. "Because you have such a vulnerable idea and you're presenting it for the first time. time.
I wanted to record in just 1 take and my delivery couldn't sound fake, or pop. It had to be from the heart. Achieving this in a live show is easy.
But doing it in the artificiality of a recording studio, with an engineer who is drowsy because he ate too much barbecue for dinner, or whatever. . .
I was like that, I clearly remember being very upset" Michael said he was so stressed he started to feel very hot, as if his body was on fire. The solution he found for this was to take off his clothes and record the official version of the song practically naked. Stipe titled the song “Losing My Religion,” an expression that means losing faith or hope in something.
Growing up in the southern United States, Michael spent his life believing that this was a common expression throughout the country. discovered that it was a regional slang after the song's release, when people began to question whether the song was a criticism of religions. And although REM had already denied this several times, the Losing My Religion music video itself didn't help the band.
support this argument. With several references to angels, saints, Hindu deities, and various Christian allegories, the music video only added fuel to the fire. After more than 30 years of this clip, many people do not understand the meaning of these images and how they relate to the lyrics of the song.
I was one of those people. For me, the clip was a sequence of images that made almost no sense. Well, that was until I did the research for this script.
I ended up discovering something impressive: the clip presents 4 distinct universes that, after a disturbance, end up connecting: the real world, the world of the gods, the world of art, and the red world. Each of these universes represents a conflicting emotion, and guide the song's narrative during the almost 5 minutes of the clip. The first to appear is the real world, and it consists of this strange house where the 4 band members are.
The dominant emotion in this universe is “fear”, and this includes all the feelings associated with this emotion: such as insecurity and uncertainty. You can see it in the always closed and withdrawn body language of people here. At the beginning of the clip, we see Michael sitting down while the other band members appear running and looking up, as if they were predicting that something is going to fall.
This is a reference to the film “The Sacrifice”, by Andrei Tarkovsky, where the protagonist is a journalist who stops believing in God, but needs to rescue his faith after losing hope in humanity. Soon after, an angel appears carrying a wing, foreshadowing the breaking of the barrier between the 4 universes, establishing chaos, and starting the music. Just like in November Rain, which we have already deciphered here, the rain on the window represents tears and suffering, while the jug of milk breaking on the floor could be a reference to the expression “crying over spilled milk”.
In other words, something happened that the protagonist did not want, and he simply cannot accept that there is no going back. We notice this denial during the clip, as the floor alternates between dry and soaked with milk, which also leaves us wondering whether everything that is happening in the clip is real, a dream, a memory or a nightmare. The aesthetics of the house are a reference to the film Stalker, also by Tarkovsky.
Stalker means “stalker”, and this already gives a hint about one of the 4 worlds. During the clip, the only time Michael isn't so repressed is when he's dancing. Even so, you can tell that it's a very withdrawn and clumsy dance, as if he wasn't at ease.
In fact, this dance was not in the video's script, and only came in by chance. Director Tarsem Singh's idea was for Michael to just sit, sing, and pose in the style of Indian films. Michael felt that it wasn't working and, according to him, this was a very stupid idea.
Tarsem was new to directing, and was still finishing film school. When he realized that his idea wasn't working, he felt so distressed that he ran to the bathroom, where he spent more than 30 minutes vomiting. Meanwhile, the band needed to think of a solution to continue the video.
They said, "This isn't working," and I said, "I know. " And they said, "What are we going to do? " And I said: "Let me dance.
Let me try to dance. " Michael Stipe remembered the video for the song Emperor's New Clothes by singer Sinnead O'Connor, and the song “Once In A Lifetime” by the band Talking Heads, and basically combined the two to create a new dance. After 1 minute of the clip, we are finally introduced to the second universe: the world of the gods, representing the emotion of “desire”, more specifically the desire for something unattainable.
This universe is made up of angels, Hindu gods, and even Catholic saints, as is the case in this scene. This is a reference to the painting “The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian”, by baroque painter Guido Reni. Saint Sebastian was a member of the Roman army, whom Emperor Diocletian trusted so much that he appointed him to the imperial guard.
However, Sebastião followed Christianity, a prohibited religion at the time, and he secretly strengthened the faith of those Christians captured and sentenced to death. When Diocletian discovered this betrayal, he tied Sebastian to a tree and shot him with several arrows. The third universe presented in the clip is the red world.
It is made up of red flags, soldiers in Soviet uniforms, hammers and other objects, making a clear reference to Cold War communism. This was a hot topic at the time, as the Soviet Union would collapse in 1991. Despite this, these images do not have a political nature here.
In the clip, the red world is just a way of presenting the 3rd conflicting emotion in the song: obsession. This obsession is represented through the spotlight that the military shines on the world of the gods, with a goal that you will soon understand. While some military personnel manipulate the spotlight, others work tirelessly to build something.
At this moment, we can see the drawing of the object they are building. And at the top of the sheet, we see the name Otto. This is a reference to Otto Lilienthal, a 19th century German inventor, considered to this day as the father of gliding flight.
Passionate about the idea of flying, Otto built several glider prototypes and performed more than 2000 gliding flights in his life. But it was precisely this obsession that killed him, after losing support during a flight, and falling from a height of 17 meters. The spotlight of obsession seems to bother the deities, who turn their faces when they are illuminated.
At first, the lights seem to do nothing more than just annoy you. But that changes in this scene. As two angels rest under a tree, The light from the spotlight makes one of the angels lose his balance and fall from the world of the gods directly into the fourth and final world: the world of art.
This universe is made up of re-enactments of various works of art, and the dominant emotion here is that of “disillusionment”. These works often address themes of disbelief and loss of faith, which is a strong nod to the song's title. According to the band, the narrative of this world is also heavily based on a book called “A Very Old Lord With Enormous Wings”, by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, in which an angel with the appearance of an elderly man falls from the sky during a storm, and lands in the courtyard of a Colombian village house.
When the owners of the house find him, they take the old angel to the chicken coop, where they keep him as a religious attraction, charging fees from tourists and people seeking miracles, while mistreating and exploiting the old angel. In addition to this story, the art world is full of references to the works of Baroque painter Michelangelo Caravaggio, such as this scene that references the painting “Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy”. This painting represents the moment in which a seraph angel applies the stigmata to Saint Francis, which are the marks of wounds in the same places on the body where Christ suffered during the crucifixion, and represent a sign of connection with God.
But if you notice, in the video clip, the position between the angel and the man is reversed, with the angel in the position of receiving the stigmata. When we analyze the lyrics you will understand why. One of the stigma marks can be seen at this moment in the clip, which is also a reference to Caravaggio's painting Ecce Hommo, and which depicts the moment where the Roman governor Pilate presented Jesus of Nazareth (already flagellated, with his hands tied, and with a crown of thorns) before a hostile crowd.
Pilate did this as a way of allowing the people themselves to decide on the crucifixion of Christ and, therefore, to absolve himself of responsibility for this decision, which was previously his alone. In other words: public humiliation and injustice disguised as good intentions, as in the tale of the angel who fell from heaven. But these are not the only religious references in the video.
Here is a reference to the painting “The Flagellation of Christ”, which shows Jesus being imprisoned in a pillar moments before being whipped. Soon after, we see a reference to the painting “The Deposition of Christ”, which shows the preparation for the burial of Jesus Christ. And in this scene, we see an allusion to the painting “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas”, which represents the moment in which the apostle Thomas doubted the resurrection of Jesus, and said that he would only believe in it if he saw him alive and could touch his wounds with his fingers.
mortals of Christ. But all these references insinuating disbelief, disillusionment and loss of faith, according to vocalist Michael Stipe, have nothing to do with religion, but rather based on his own life experience, as Michael has always been shy, reserved and introverted. This personality led to certain situations where he could no longer believe in himself.
"As the shy person that I am, I know very well what it's like to really like someone, but not know how to tell them. You're not sure if what 's developing is a friendship, or something more than that. And you means something, but - quoting the lyrics of my song - you never know if you've said too much or if you've said enough.
" However, defining Losing My Religion as a song about simple platonic love would be making the mistake of ignoring the full depth and complexity of this work of art. If you look at the lyrics, you will notice that they do not talk about love in a positive way, but rather reveal the darker side of this feeling: obsession. Michael approached this topic by taking inspiration from one of the greatest classics of the 80s.
"I remember Every Breath You Take, by The Police. And I thought that was the most beautiful song, and the most sinister of them all. " "It's a brilliant song about unrequited love, and you don't even know if the object of affection is aware of that person, or if they're a stalker, or what the story is.
I wanted to do the same thing. " Throughout the song, he exposes his soul, searching for hidden meanings and signs hopeful, but slowly going crazy in the process, until they completely lose their minds. That's why, at the beginning of the song, when he still has some sanity left, he says: Life is bigger.
She is bigger than you. And you are not me. She seems so grand and distant to him that he tries to console himself by saying that she 's not the most important thing in the world.
But deep down he knows he doesn't believe that, so he begins to enter into a dangerous conflict with himself. The distances I would travel. The distance in your eyes.
He knows he is capable of doing anything to be noticed by her eyes, which seem so distant and indifferent to him. But like a typical shy person, he soon feels guilty for having said those words. Oh no, I said too much.
I caused all of this. If you, like me, are also a shy person, you will identify even more with this feeling of always thinking that you said the wrong thing, or that someone doesn't want to hear what you are saying. Approaching someone you love to confess your feelings for them can seem torturous and scary, as it brings up a conflict between the desire to be noticed and the fear of being rejected and judged.
And that's what he talks about in the line: That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight This part of the lyrics was originally supposed to be a little different. In an interview with legendary producer Rick Rubin in 2022, Michael Stipe revealed that he changed a word of that verse at the last moment. “I changed a lyric, I remember.
Instead of 'That's me in the spotlight', before it was 'That's me in the kitchen' ('that's me in the kitchen'). ” Stipe declared. And then he explained: “What I wanted to bring was the shy person who stays isolated in the corner during a party, and who doesn't approach the person he's in love with.
So he stays there watching everyone dancing, watching the love of his life have fun with everyone, or he stays in the kitchen, hiding behind the refrigerator. ” Stipe preferred to change the word “kitchen” to “spotlight” for the sole reason that it sounded better in the song. But he ended up regretting this exchange later, and this regret even ended up influencing his next compositions such as the classic hit “Everybody Hurts”.
Guitarist Peter Buck revealed in an interview with Select magazine in 1992: “Originally, there was a line after the first chorus of Everybody Hurts where Michael sang: 'Everybody suffers, even the singer of this song. ' But Michael thought twice and said - 'You know what, we'd better be more universal this time'. He regrets using 'That's Me in the Spotlight' on Losing My Religion because a lot of people ended up interpreting it as if the lyrics were about his life on stage, which isn't what the song is actually about.
" Little by little, the protagonist's internal conflicts become unbearable, and what was once just shyness and insecurity turns into an obsession. With every sigh, with every waking hour, I try to keep my eyes on you. The obsession is so great that he constantly watches her like a stalker.
And he ends up creating too many expectations about who he loves. I thought I saw you laughing, I thought I saw you sing, I think I thought I saw you cry As a typical obsessive behavior, he observes any micro-change in her facial expression with excessive attention, focused on finding signs of interest on her part, and getting to the point of ending up with completely wrong interpretations, as he makes clear shortly afterwards: But that was just a dream . He thought he was living in a happy relationship, where she laughed, sang and cried along with him.
But here he realizes that it was all just a dream, a relationship that was only in his head the entire time. Knowing this we begin to understand many of the analogies in the clip. For example, deities were nothing more than idealizations of a perfect love, of an unattainable love.
The obsession in the search for this love becomes even clearer in this scene, where we finally see what object was being built: it was a kind of metallic exoskeleton, probably made to imprison women. deities that were being observed with the spotlights. And the old angel was the representation of the protagonist's love: a love that was idealized with such great expectations that he ended up falling into disillusionment, being cruelly hurt, exploited, and humiliated, until he finally ended up dying.
Despite being based on his personality to write the lyrics, it does not deal with a specific experience of the singer, as Michael Stipe himself said in the book Reveal: “It's a classic song about obsession. I've always thought that the best songs are the ones that anyone can listen to and identify with. ” But like I said, not everyone interpreted the song that way, and many people saw Losing My Religion as blasphemy against their religion.
In May 1991, the Losing My Religion music video was banned in Ireland due to the offensive use of sacred images, such as the representation of Catholic angels and saints with effeminate features. "In some places people questioned it, religious organizations questioned it, the Catholic church… And the music wanted to say something very different in Ireland, for example, in 1991. " Elsewhere, Losing My Religion became a protest anthem for people who questioned the excess power that religion had over the government and the people.
Another theory was that the lyrics talked about the sexuality of Michael Stipe, who is bisexual, but at the time had not yet come out. And due to Michael's appearance, which was always very thin, rumors also began to emerge that the song was about the singer having contracted and fighting the HIV virus. In an interview with Independent magazine in '98, Stipe spoke about these rumors: “The rumors saddened me for a few minutes, but whatever I do, I can't allow the media to control my life.
” All these theories that emerged only brought new learning to the band. “I didn’t understand what people deduced from the music. Then I understood that after you make a successful song, in fact the song is no longer yours.
" The most bizarre thing is that none of the band members believed that the song had any potential to be successful. To make matters worse, their record company , Warner Bros, believed even less. She didn't want to release this song as a single.
For those who don't know, a single is like a promotional song. which are usually featured songs released individually as a way to increase public expectations for the full album, much to Warner's dismay, the band decided to release Losing My Religion as the first single from the album Out Of Time, because according to Michael Stipe, it was the first single. REM had a tradition of choosing the track least likely to be successful as the first single from each album.
Their idea was that Losing My Religion would serve as a kind of warm-up for the album's second single, a song they considered much more. pop and with commercial appeal, Shiny Happy People. Although it also had some success, it was a song that did not reflect the band's identity.
Losing My Religion, a song without a well-defined chorus, and whose main instrument was a mandolin, is, among all the songs they've ever done, the song that most resembles REM, according to Michael Stipe himself. But when they told Warner Bros. about the idea of Losing My Religion being the first single, the record company reacted with disgust.
"You can't release a single that has a mandolin. I said: No, let's do that. Because we don't want a hit.
We hope the album doesn't sell. "Did you want to destroy your own career on purpose? " Well, I think we wanted to give an end to one phase of our career.
And then start another phase. " The band put their foot down and finally managed to convince the record company of the idea. REM knew that the success of their songs was important, but that wasn't their focus.
As you saw from the process of writing this song, the only thing that mattered to the band was not money, but doing something that they were proud of and identified with. Luckily for them, and for us, Losing My Religion not only made them proud, but also won them awards on MTV, the Grammys and the song was even entered into the Hall of Fame in 2017. But all this success didn't necessarily sit well with some of the band's oldest fans, who wanted to keep it going.
known only among lovers of cult music, they accused REM of being a sold-out band, and some even talked about a boycott. Guitarist Peter Buck’s response to these people sums up the band’s position well: “The people who changed their minds because of Losing My Religion, get lost. ” Losing My Religion took REM from a renowned band in the cult bubble, to a band respected and loved around the world, without losing the essence and identity they always had.
All of this was only possible thanks to the band's courage in exposing their most intimate feelings, imperfections and defects in the form of music. Just like Axl Rose, the lead singer of Guns 'n Roses, did, exposing his traumas to create the darkest trilogy in rock 'n roll. If you want to know more about this story, just click on this video.
Thank you very much for your company, and I'll see you in the next video.
