Red Mosquito

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I like I've Been High fine, but REM has so many achingly beautiful songs, and I've Been High is reaching for heights it has never quite earned. The music is a little too electronic and processed (and lacks some of the lushness of the other songs on the album--like the glorious song that precedes it), Stipe's lyrics are nothing to really write home about, and the performance is not one of his best. It's a perfectly decent song, but they were clearly aiming for greatness.


Until the Day is Done is amazing. I adore the lyrics, and I'm not sure I've heard another song that so beautifully captures the exhausted hollow sadness of a country suffering through a self-inflicted wound.


Until the Day is Done.

Until the Day is Done is good proof of how consistently good the band remained through the years. Killer song.

This is a tough one. I've always had a soft spot I've Been High -- it's definitely a stand out on the album.

I think I remember reading awhile back that Until the Day is Done was actually written in the late 80's, and just debuted in 2008. I like it, but it's not terribly unique in this genre of REM songs.

I've Been High

I've Been High

For the past two days


Yay codeine

"Until the Day is Done" is good but "I've Been High" is transcendent for me -- one of Stipe's all-time great vocals.

really? i find the vocals to be a tad disappointing. he struggles and cant quite find the transcendent beauty he is singing about

stip wrote:really? i find the vocals to be a tad disappointing. he struggles and cant quite find the transcendent beauty he is singing about

I'm 100 percent in the opposite direction on this one, though I liked his live vocals for the song even better. It's such this broken, tentative moment for him.

I feel like it's going to be harder to be descriptive in a lot of these REM tournaments. It's going to be a great, great song against a great, great song so often.