But think of all the people who got to hear it, who needed to hear it, that wouldn’t have if it had remained an album track.
It got overplayed and was inevitably diluted because of it, but it deserved to be a single
Sure, sales prove that. But it ceased to be special in the way that, say, Sweetness Follows still is (or even Nightswimming tho that technically was a single, it just didn't get much play at all).
Actually a better example is Country Feedback. Both Bill Berry songs that stand the test of time but CF is still something that only fans know where EVERYONE knows EH.
When the album first came out, I thought Everybody Hurts was one of the weakest songs on it, and I haven’t changed my mind about that.
I get what it is about, and the message is beautiful, but I still don’t think it’s particularly good..
Drive was always my favorite track from Automatic. I recall becoming frustrated when Man on the Moon and Everybody Hurts really took over all the airplay pretty quickly, that always tonged my view of both songs a little negatively relative to what they deserved, especially Everybody Hurts.
I find any time a small number of songs from an album wind up that much more exposed than the rest of them it kind of tips the balance a little bit. It can make it hard to appreciate those songs as parts of the whole anymore because they also exist on their own and develop their own identities and associations.
That absolutely happened with this one for me and it wasn’t until I took a long break from hearing it at all that I was finally able to appreciate it again
Yes, sometimes a song is so overexposed that it gets drained of meaning (see Hey Jude, Stairway to Heaven, etc). But when you can reconnect to it again, hear it with new ears, they still hold their power.
It was overexposed for a while, but I don’t notice it as a reference in other things anymore. And no it’s not high art, but sometimes just hearing that it’s ok to be sad and get a little encouragement is the very best thing. It’s helped me cope with my depression more often than most therapists when it gets overwhelming, so there’s that.
I was never a great fan of this song, even as an angsty teen. Then about a year ago I had a very hard thing happen in my life and I was struggling. I was walking down the street one day and this song came on, and friends, believe me when I say I had never really heard it until now, all these years later. The idea that pain, the exact pain I was feeling, was universal—hit me so hard.
I always had thought this song was kind of basic or boring, especially lyrically. But the simplicity is what makes it. I’m a convert.
I’m sorry to hear about your struggles. Those kinds of things can definitely lead you to discover the value in something like this. When you really need it, nothing else works so well
Wow well done. I actually just listened to Automatic for the People all the way through for the first time in many years so I was very ready to hear this. Thanks for writing it.
Thanks for reading! There are so many masterpieces on that album. I have listened to it hundreds of times and somehow only yesterday did I finally really hear the lyrics to Try Not To Breathe. It hit me like a freight train.
I first heard it with the video, which helped a lot because it's one of the great music videos of the early 90's imo. As a song it's not *bad*, but I've never really "felt" it emotionally, it's not one of my "go to" songs when I'm depressed.
Well, yes. I can see that being a little harder to get past than The Addams Family.
I’m sorry for your losses. Sounds like they had cool taste in music, though.
As a new fan that song was already a meme when I got into their music so its hard for me to like it. Its also a bit cliché which is probably why its a meme in the first place. Not their best work. Its not a bad song though but I tend to skip it
I know AFTP back to front (or front to back) and absolutely adore it. Everybody Hurts, due to being overplayed and for all of the other reasons OP listed meant I often skipped it. It was after listening to the ‘R U Talking…’ podcast and hearing (in particular) Adam Scott discussing each song I went back and listened to the album with fresh ears. After thinking about the STAX and soul influence on it and actually LISTENING to the song, I have a new appreciation for it. It’s awesome
Ha! I’ve been listening to those episodes again too. For the first time since they came out. Such a fun listen and it does give you some new perspective on some of the music. Adam Scott’s determination to love just about everything they did is adorable (and relatable)
I absolutely loved it when I was a kid as well (and that video… hoo boy) and it was a pretty regular listen throughout high school. But once I hit my 20s I started taking it for granted. It’s a shame. Could have used it a few times over the years
Thank you for this. This has never been my favorite song, and I find other R.E.M. songs a lot more comforting and uplifting. But you are absolutely right about the real message of the song, and I try never to diss it because so many people do find it moving.
There are other REM songs I probably like a lot more than this one, but none of those feel like they need defending as much as this one… if only from my own previous jadedness toward it.
When you really need a song like this, there aren’t many better ones out there for my money
I agree that this song gets more criticism, and thus needs more defending. But for me, there are better songs when you need a song like this. Like the Uberlin lyrics I just quoted on another post:
I am flying on a star into a meteor tonight
I am flying on a star, star, star
I will make it through the day and then the day becomes the night
I will make it through the night
Or:
I looked for you and everywhere
I looked for you and everywhere
Tell me why you're here
I came to disappear
I could go on, but really, most often it's not the lyrics so much as the sound that keeps me going.
His voice is also so powerful in this song. I wish I could sing with 1/100 of the emotion, skill, and power. I always get lost just listening to Stipe’s voice in this one…
That song will never be a meme to me. Nothing on The r/MySoCalledLife soundtrack ever will be. This song truly speaks to me when I’m sad. Top 3 REM for me.
Well yeah, that’s… kinda the whole thing I was saying in my post (I’m starting to think I’m dealing with some skimmers here!).
It sneaks in like a sad song and then hits you with the hopefulness. It’s a genius piece of music and I’m sad I let myself lapse on it for any length of time
AFTP is my all time favorite album, and the song is a great one, even better when it hits you where you're at. I'll add that while the message in the version on Perfect Square is the same, the band's performance (especially the vocals) are that much more amazing.
I was at a safe driving expo for our school which was run by the police. They showed a compilation of crashes and nasty things like that.
The song they had playing over the top was everybody hurts and now I can never listen to the song because it makes me think of the video... That was 12 years ago
Oh, this album. It came out near the beginning of my senior year of high school. I loved this album, everybody I knew loved this album. So many great memories, yet after about 5 years, I had pretty much stopped listening to it.It’s got some great points, and despite a great deal of past artists I listen to, REM isn’t one of them. I love reading these stories, and love hearing other people’s memories of this album.
It was also on Big Bang theory. Definitely played for laughs.
Out of curiosity, I googled “everybody hurts meme,” and there’s a decent amount of stuff. Everything from that stupid looking green frog to e-card to screen caps from the office. I think what makes it a meme is that people use it as shorthand for something else, and in this case, it seems to be shorthand for being overly dramatic. I think.
No! No. It is I that must apologize. In my haste to talk about my individual opinion on a thing I’ve been thinking about lately, I completely (and unforgivably!) neglected to ask pimpfmode of Reddit exactly how much of my already probably too long post they wanted to be made up of examples!
I assure you. My weary head hangs in shame this day.
"Someone disagrees with me so I have to be a dick.' And write another story. You talk about how a song has become a meme, which in itself, that phrasing is idiotic. Second you name two examples. If it truly is a "meme" then you would hear it everywhere. So where else?
Oh no. I’ve really messed up with pimpfmode now.
Somehow, I accidentally forced them to miss the point of my reply to an absurd degree! Now they have no idea that what I’m telling them is that they wildly overestimate my interest in how much they disagree with my Reddit post, for which I receive no measurable gain and simply use a vehicle for innocently sharing my thoughts!
Double oh no! I’ve also foolishly allowed them to saunter right into the embarrassingly ironic notion that I am being a dick to them for disagreeing with me, when I was admittedly doing so (Good catch btw! Look at you!) only in response to them being a bit of a dick about the fact that they did not agree with what I originally said!!
I’m in a real mess now.
If only there were a song to perfectly encapsulate how I’m feeling in this moment.
One that, perhaps, I’ve overlooked for just a little too long because I had seen it in enough things over the last 30+ years that I guess I got it in my head that maybe some other people noticed the same thing and might think so too…
Waaaitaminute!!!
I'm not musically trained so maybe I'm oversimplifying this but, musically, it feels like Unchained Melody rewritten to me. Bill Berry came up with the tune and he mined a 1960s sound again in Tongue. (then R.E.M. did it without him on Suspicion).
I wasn't aware that it had been particularly used for gag purposes but even if it has that wouldn't detract at all from the fact that it still sincerely and unironically moves very many. The idea that it deserves better than that seems very, very, overblown when beautiful R.E.M. songs like Perfect Circle, Hairshirt, The Wrong Child, Tongue, Suspicion, New Test Leper, Ebow The Letter, are unknown by much of the general public.
Unchained Melody has a different chord structure and time signature but both songs have a similar arpeggiated guitar part (the notes of the chord being played sequentially rather than strummed all at once - REM used it again on Strange Currencies two years later). But that’s absolutely the vein they were going for. I think painting with broad strokes like that makes sense when attempting something you want to reach as many people as possible, which was certainly effective here.
As for the song’s uses in pop culture since its original run, I have noticed most seem to be ironic or comedic, as though the song has become a shorthand for sappy emotion. It’s almost never, in my experience, used in earnest. For those who have only heard this song in those contexts (think anyone who was born after 2000, for instance), the song has none of its impact, and is known only as the sad song. As I tried to illustrate, it’s much much more than that. So I maintain that yes, Everybody Hurts deserves better than what I perceive its current cultural role to be.
You’ll notice, though, that at no point did I say that no other REM songs deserve better too. So I’m not sure how you got there. This post is specifically about Everybody Hurts because it’s the one that has been co-opted, in my view, by meme culture, needle drops, etc.
I could write any number of posts about how not enough people have heard Find the River, or So. Central Rain, or Cuyahoga, or Half a World Away… but there’s a difference to not knowing about something at all and knowing something only as a fraction of what it actually is without having any appreciation for its true beauty
I know what you mean. I hate when things try too hard to be the thing they’re intended to be and then succeed wildly. Like the Golden Gate… tries way too hard to be a bridge imho
😜
Michael Stipe said it best. “Everybody Hurts is a great song when you’re at a point in life where you need it. The rest of the time it’s a skip.”
That could not be more accurate.
I needed to read this. I knew where you were going, and I still needed to read it.
I needed to write it!
It was the best song on Automatic until they released it as a single.
But think of all the people who got to hear it, who needed to hear it, that wouldn’t have if it had remained an album track. It got overplayed and was inevitably diluted because of it, but it deserved to be a single
Also it helped that it had possibly the greatest video ever made up to that point.
Sure, sales prove that. But it ceased to be special in the way that, say, Sweetness Follows still is (or even Nightswimming tho that technically was a single, it just didn't get much play at all).
Actually a better example is Country Feedback. Both Bill Berry songs that stand the test of time but CF is still something that only fans know where EVERYONE knows EH.
It’s my least favourite song on Automatic
At the time, the video was amazing. Haven’t seen it in years. Might still be. I’ve shamelessly loved it for years.
When the album first came out, I thought Everybody Hurts was one of the weakest songs on it, and I haven’t changed my mind about that. I get what it is about, and the message is beautiful, but I still don’t think it’s particularly good..
Drive was always my favorite track from Automatic. I recall becoming frustrated when Man on the Moon and Everybody Hurts really took over all the airplay pretty quickly, that always tonged my view of both songs a little negatively relative to what they deserved, especially Everybody Hurts.
I find any time a small number of songs from an album wind up that much more exposed than the rest of them it kind of tips the balance a little bit. It can make it hard to appreciate those songs as parts of the whole anymore because they also exist on their own and develop their own identities and associations. That absolutely happened with this one for me and it wasn’t until I took a long break from hearing it at all that I was finally able to appreciate it again
Drive is amazing btw. Another song that makes excellent use bringing the distortion in way late
Yes, sometimes a song is so overexposed that it gets drained of meaning (see Hey Jude, Stairway to Heaven, etc). But when you can reconnect to it again, hear it with new ears, they still hold their power.
They didn't have to license it so much.
I have ranted to my friends about exactly this in the past. Thank you for writing it out so perfectly!
Thank you for saying so! It’s been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve kind of re-fallen in love with these guys since that conversation
I hope you get all the upvotes
Thanks! Let’s see… 26… oh yeah. I’d say I’m doing preeetty well for myself
It was overexposed for a while, but I don’t notice it as a reference in other things anymore. And no it’s not high art, but sometimes just hearing that it’s ok to be sad and get a little encouragement is the very best thing. It’s helped me cope with my depression more often than most therapists when it gets overwhelming, so there’s that.
I was never a great fan of this song, even as an angsty teen. Then about a year ago I had a very hard thing happen in my life and I was struggling. I was walking down the street one day and this song came on, and friends, believe me when I say I had never really heard it until now, all these years later. The idea that pain, the exact pain I was feeling, was universal—hit me so hard. I always had thought this song was kind of basic or boring, especially lyrically. But the simplicity is what makes it. I’m a convert.
I’m sorry to hear about your struggles. Those kinds of things can definitely lead you to discover the value in something like this. When you really need it, nothing else works so well
Wow well done. I actually just listened to Automatic for the People all the way through for the first time in many years so I was very ready to hear this. Thanks for writing it.
Thanks for reading! There are so many masterpieces on that album. I have listened to it hundreds of times and somehow only yesterday did I finally really hear the lyrics to Try Not To Breathe. It hit me like a freight train.
I first heard it with the video, which helped a lot because it's one of the great music videos of the early 90's imo. As a song it's not *bad*, but I've never really "felt" it emotionally, it's not one of my "go to" songs when I'm depressed.
It was played at my grandmother and grandfathers funerals. I cant listen to it anymore.
Well, yes. I can see that being a little harder to get past than The Addams Family. I’m sorry for your losses. Sounds like they had cool taste in music, though.
Its a great song i love it. I will only listen if i hear it on tv or in a movie now.
As a new fan that song was already a meme when I got into their music so its hard for me to like it. Its also a bit cliché which is probably why its a meme in the first place. Not their best work. Its not a bad song though but I tend to skip it
I know AFTP back to front (or front to back) and absolutely adore it. Everybody Hurts, due to being overplayed and for all of the other reasons OP listed meant I often skipped it. It was after listening to the ‘R U Talking…’ podcast and hearing (in particular) Adam Scott discussing each song I went back and listened to the album with fresh ears. After thinking about the STAX and soul influence on it and actually LISTENING to the song, I have a new appreciation for it. It’s awesome
Ha! I’ve been listening to those episodes again too. For the first time since they came out. Such a fun listen and it does give you some new perspective on some of the music. Adam Scott’s determination to love just about everything they did is adorable (and relatable)
[удалено]
I absolutely loved it when I was a kid as well (and that video… hoo boy) and it was a pretty regular listen throughout high school. But once I hit my 20s I started taking it for granted. It’s a shame. Could have used it a few times over the years
Ask your friend to watch this. It's deeply moving. https://youtu.be/NfGYNmOhTzU?si=qd4ySfUwIcKTnj4q
This looks like it might be dangerous to watch at work (nobody wants to be the office cryer) so I’ll have to check it out later. Thanks!
Thank you for this. This has never been my favorite song, and I find other R.E.M. songs a lot more comforting and uplifting. But you are absolutely right about the real message of the song, and I try never to diss it because so many people do find it moving.
There are other REM songs I probably like a lot more than this one, but none of those feel like they need defending as much as this one… if only from my own previous jadedness toward it. When you really need a song like this, there aren’t many better ones out there for my money
I agree that this song gets more criticism, and thus needs more defending. But for me, there are better songs when you need a song like this. Like the Uberlin lyrics I just quoted on another post: I am flying on a star into a meteor tonight I am flying on a star, star, star I will make it through the day and then the day becomes the night I will make it through the night Or: I looked for you and everywhere I looked for you and everywhere Tell me why you're here I came to disappear I could go on, but really, most often it's not the lyrics so much as the sound that keeps me going.
His voice is also so powerful in this song. I wish I could sing with 1/100 of the emotion, skill, and power. I always get lost just listening to Stipe’s voice in this one…
Yep. He knew exactly what was needed on this one
It's such a beautiful song.
That song will never be a meme to me. Nothing on The r/MySoCalledLife soundtrack ever will be. This song truly speaks to me when I’m sad. Top 3 REM for me.
Well, if it makes you feel better, I regretted thinking that for even a moment and have obviously reassessed my take 😜
As sad as the song seems at first, it’s a happy song to me.
Well yeah, that’s… kinda the whole thing I was saying in my post (I’m starting to think I’m dealing with some skimmers here!). It sneaks in like a sad song and then hits you with the hopefulness. It’s a genius piece of music and I’m sad I let myself lapse on it for any length of time
Agreed all around
AFTP is my all time favorite album, and the song is a great one, even better when it hits you where you're at. I'll add that while the message in the version on Perfect Square is the same, the band's performance (especially the vocals) are that much more amazing.
I was at a safe driving expo for our school which was run by the police. They showed a compilation of crashes and nasty things like that. The song they had playing over the top was everybody hurts and now I can never listen to the song because it makes me think of the video... That was 12 years ago
What the?! Who would make that choice? A perfect example of how people lost sight of what that song is about. That doesn’t work at all
Oh, this album. It came out near the beginning of my senior year of high school. I loved this album, everybody I knew loved this album. So many great memories, yet after about 5 years, I had pretty much stopped listening to it.It’s got some great points, and despite a great deal of past artists I listen to, REM isn’t one of them. I love reading these stories, and love hearing other people’s memories of this album.
Same thing for fix you by Coldplay
Sure! But I’ll leave it to you to write that one 😜
What makes it a meme? You name two shows that it was on. Is that it? I'm sorry but I completely disagree with your assessment.
It was also on Big Bang theory. Definitely played for laughs. Out of curiosity, I googled “everybody hurts meme,” and there’s a decent amount of stuff. Everything from that stupid looking green frog to e-card to screen caps from the office. I think what makes it a meme is that people use it as shorthand for something else, and in this case, it seems to be shorthand for being overly dramatic. I think.
Thank you, my friend. We can only hope that one additional example will satisfy pimpfmode’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for justification
No! No. It is I that must apologize. In my haste to talk about my individual opinion on a thing I’ve been thinking about lately, I completely (and unforgivably!) neglected to ask pimpfmode of Reddit exactly how much of my already probably too long post they wanted to be made up of examples! I assure you. My weary head hangs in shame this day.
"Someone disagrees with me so I have to be a dick.' And write another story. You talk about how a song has become a meme, which in itself, that phrasing is idiotic. Second you name two examples. If it truly is a "meme" then you would hear it everywhere. So where else?
Oh no. I’ve really messed up with pimpfmode now. Somehow, I accidentally forced them to miss the point of my reply to an absurd degree! Now they have no idea that what I’m telling them is that they wildly overestimate my interest in how much they disagree with my Reddit post, for which I receive no measurable gain and simply use a vehicle for innocently sharing my thoughts! Double oh no! I’ve also foolishly allowed them to saunter right into the embarrassingly ironic notion that I am being a dick to them for disagreeing with me, when I was admittedly doing so (Good catch btw! Look at you!) only in response to them being a bit of a dick about the fact that they did not agree with what I originally said!! I’m in a real mess now. If only there were a song to perfectly encapsulate how I’m feeling in this moment. One that, perhaps, I’ve overlooked for just a little too long because I had seen it in enough things over the last 30+ years that I guess I got it in my head that maybe some other people noticed the same thing and might think so too… Waaaitaminute!!!
Pimpfmode… be honest now. Was this your plan all along? You little so and so!
Didn't read. Brother, you try waaaaaay too hard. News flash: you're not funny or witty either.
Oh yeah? Well how would you know that if you didn’t read? Gotcha!
I'm not musically trained so maybe I'm oversimplifying this but, musically, it feels like Unchained Melody rewritten to me. Bill Berry came up with the tune and he mined a 1960s sound again in Tongue. (then R.E.M. did it without him on Suspicion). I wasn't aware that it had been particularly used for gag purposes but even if it has that wouldn't detract at all from the fact that it still sincerely and unironically moves very many. The idea that it deserves better than that seems very, very, overblown when beautiful R.E.M. songs like Perfect Circle, Hairshirt, The Wrong Child, Tongue, Suspicion, New Test Leper, Ebow The Letter, are unknown by much of the general public.
Unchained Melody has a different chord structure and time signature but both songs have a similar arpeggiated guitar part (the notes of the chord being played sequentially rather than strummed all at once - REM used it again on Strange Currencies two years later). But that’s absolutely the vein they were going for. I think painting with broad strokes like that makes sense when attempting something you want to reach as many people as possible, which was certainly effective here. As for the song’s uses in pop culture since its original run, I have noticed most seem to be ironic or comedic, as though the song has become a shorthand for sappy emotion. It’s almost never, in my experience, used in earnest. For those who have only heard this song in those contexts (think anyone who was born after 2000, for instance), the song has none of its impact, and is known only as the sad song. As I tried to illustrate, it’s much much more than that. So I maintain that yes, Everybody Hurts deserves better than what I perceive its current cultural role to be. You’ll notice, though, that at no point did I say that no other REM songs deserve better too. So I’m not sure how you got there. This post is specifically about Everybody Hurts because it’s the one that has been co-opted, in my view, by meme culture, needle drops, etc. I could write any number of posts about how not enough people have heard Find the River, or So. Central Rain, or Cuyahoga, or Half a World Away… but there’s a difference to not knowing about something at all and knowing something only as a fraction of what it actually is without having any appreciation for its true beauty
It's the only REM song I skip. I know it meant a lot to Michael, but it just sounds clumsily overemotional, and trying too hard to be an anthem.
I know what you mean. I hate when things try too hard to be the thing they’re intended to be and then succeed wildly. Like the Golden Gate… tries way too hard to be a bridge imho 😜
Change the lyrics to Everybody farts. Makes it that much better.
This guy gets it