The One I Love
When Georgia natives R.E.M. debuted their first Top 10 tune in concert, guitarist Peter Buck was perplexed by the passionate reactions of the crowd. Buck revealed: “I’d look into the audience and there would be couples kissing”. “Yet the verse is… savagely anti-love… People told me that was ‘their song.’ That was your song?”. Singer Michael Stipe clearly felt the same as Buck, revealing in a 1992 interview with Q magazine that he almost didn’t even record the song, calling it “too brutal” and “really violent and awful.”
The One I Love
Semi-Charmed Life
The two censor-triggering words in the line “doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break” would be back-masked in an edited version of the song played by radio stations, so radio purists of the 1990s probably missed out on the fact that the upbeat Third Eye Blind anthem is about a couple on a crystal meth binge. The musical and lyrical juxtapositions were fully planned, according to lead singer Stephen Jenkins, the music reflects “the bright, shiny feeling you get on speed”.
Semi Charmed Life