Sunday Pages: "Ignoreland"

A song by R.E.M.

Dear Reader,

Greetings from somewhere in true upstate New York—a lovely part of the state I’ve not visited before but certainly will again.

I’ve spent the weekend with my friend Lincoln’s Bible and her family. This is remarkable because, first, while we have worked closely together for the last two and a half years, spoken regularly on the phone, and done Narativ Live every Friday night for many months, we had never actually met in person. So that was fun! I’m leaving here soon, to beat the wretched Sunday traffic, but what a fantastic weekend (you can watch some of it here). Thanks to her and her lovely family for their hospitality, good company, and indulgence of my New Jersey-accented voiceover work.

My visit is also remarkable because, not that long ago, trips across the country and maskless weekends with non-bubble-partners could not be undertaken at all. The Biden vaccine rollout has been a massive success, and we continue to enjoy its benefits as we move toward pre-pandemic normalcy. We came this close to another Trump term, to the death of democracy, to a continued sabotage of the coronavirus response. The descent into autocracy may still come to pass. But in the meantime, what a blessing, to avoid that fate!

Now then: “Sunday Pages.”

MTV ran an ad in maybe 1987—right around when Document came out—in which a young man, apparently under the influence of substances stronger than alcohol, said to the camera, “I think when I’m 40, I’ll still be listening to R.E.M.” At the time, the rock band from Athens, Georgia was one of many “alternative” bands on the music scene. They could have selected any of them them, but the MTV people sure picked the right group. I am almost 49, and I still listen to R.E.M.

Indeed, to me, R.E.M. is the most important band of my generation. I can measure my life by album releases: Document is high school, Automatic for the People is college, Monster is recent-college-graduate New York.

And yet the band’s reputation seems to have receded these days. My son, who is 16, is something of a music savant, with wide-ranging tastes and a knowledge base that already far outstrips my own. He thinks of R.E.M. as the one-hit wonder band who did “Losing My Religion.” (Then he pauses to think and says: “Oh, wait, they also do ‘Shiny Happy People,’ and that song sucks.”)

This is a shame, because there is so much in the catalogue to appreciate—music and words. R.E.M. was never an overtly political band, like their more sanctimonious rivals in U2, but they are sneakily subversive. Lyrically, their politics are more subtle and fun than the gloomy, joyless, bang-you-over-the-head-with-a-Stratocaster offerings from Bono. (In hindsight, it was a perfect choice to have him and his mullet sing the self-righteous “Tonight thank god it’s them instead of you” line in “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”)

In songs like “Driver 8,” “Cuyahoga,” “Exhuming McCarthy,” and the criminally underrated “Disturbance at the Heron House,” lyricist and lead singer Michael Stipe taps into the soft underbelly of U.S. history—the push and pull between the oppressors and the oppressed—in a way that always struck me as both organic and profound. It’s impossible to listen to Document—even the smash hit, “It’s the End of World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”—and not reflect on the kind of American history you don’t learn much about in school.

By the time Automatic for the People was released, a week before the 1992 election, Stipe was less restrained. Twelve years of Republican rule had done a number on him. The result was “Ignoreland,” a musical tirade against the excesses of the Reagan-Bush years, which began when Reagan launched his presidential campaign in 1979.

The vocals are squelched and turned way down in the mix, so it’s hard to hear what he’s saying. But his words still pack a resonant wallop:

Ignoreland

These bastards stole their power
From the victims of the “us v. them” years,
Wrecking all things virtuous and true.
The undermining-social-democratic downhill slide into abysmal,
Lost lamb off the precipice
Into the trickle-down runoff pool.

They hypnotized the summer,
Nineteen seventy-nine.
Marched into the capital:
Brooding, duplicitous, wicked and able, media-ready,
Heartless, and labeled “Super U.S. citizen, super achiever.”
Mega-ultra power doesn’t relax.
“Defense, defense, defense, defense.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ignoreland,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The information nation took their clues
From all the sound-bite gluttons.
Nineteen eighty, eighty-four, eighty-eight,
Ninety-two, too (too).
How to be what you can be,
Jump jam junking your energy.
How to walk in dignity with throw up on your shoes?

They amplified the autumn,
Nineteen seventy-nine.
Calculate the capital, “up the republic” my skinny ass.
TV tells a million lies.
The paper’s terrified to report
Anything that isn’t handed on a presidential spoon.
I’m just profoundly frustrated by all this.
So, fuck you, man (fuck ‘em).
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ignoreland,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If they weren’t there we would have created them.
Maybe, it is true.
But I’m resentful all the same.
Someone’s got to take the blame.
I know that this is vitriol—no solution, just spleen-venting.
But I feel better having screamed, don't you?

They desecrate the winter,
Nineteen seventy-nine.
Capital collateral:
Brooding, duplicitous, wicked and able, media-ready,
Heartless, and labeled “Super U.S. citizen, super achiever.”
Mega-ultra power doesn’t relax.
“Defense, defense, defense, defense.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ignoreland,
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(This is not a revolution. I didn’t do the revolution. Thank you)