Red Mosquito

Vote

This is really tough. Both really good songs, though neither is a personal favorite. I'd rather listen to accelerate these days, but Cuyahoga has one of my favorite bridges in the entire catalog "rewrite the book and rule the pages/saving face, secured in faith/bury, burn the waste behind you'

It gets my vote for that passage though Accelerate is the more exciting song. I've also always though Accelerate is indebted to ghost.

Cuyahoga

Both songs are fantastic.
Im going with Cuyahoga, but Id vote for Accelerate over in almost every other matchup this round.

stip wrote:Cuyahoga has one of my favorite bridges in the entire catalog "rewrite the book and rule the pages/saving face, secured in faith/bury, burn the waste behind you'

That bridge really is great. The whole song is. Easy vote for Cuyahoga even though I really like Accelerate. Probably my favorite song of this round.

Sometimes I sing "charlie's my puppy dog!" to the tune of the chorus of Cuyahoga.

Cuyahoga is one of my favorite R.E.M. songs.

It's interesting that this and Gardening at Night came up in the same round, as for me, they're the two songs I consider most emblematic of R.E.M.'s 80s work. They're anthemic but insular, and depending on the instrumentation could either be folk ditties or punk ragers. Both songs sound a little bit like a lot of bands and end up sounding like nothing else. I love the dichotomy between the gauntlet thrown in Cuyahoga's opening couple and the wailing chorus that goes in the complete opposite direction of a call to arms.

I love Accelerate, don't get me wrong ("I saw the future turn upside down and hesitate" is one of my favorite later Stipe lyrics), but Cuyahoga has an easy win here.

No time to question the choices I make

Accelerate