R.E.M. Songs - Country Feedback Lyrics

R.E.M. - Country Feedback

R.E.M. - Country Feedback Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Out Of Time
Released: 1991

Country Feedback Lyrics

Country Feedback

If you listen closely to the lyrics at the end: "It's crazy what you could've had," it can sound like "It's crazy what you couldn't have." (Apparently Michael Stipe sometimes simply makes up or distorts lyrics, which he does to great effect here). The feeling of these final lyrics gives some indication of the sense of desolation that pervades this song in almost every lyric and chord. It's about repetition in life and love, about failed relationships: "We've been through fake breakdown, self hurt, self help." It's on a continuous "maddening" loop, "feedback," and no matter how much you analyze a bad relationship with the aim to improving things, you just repeat the same things endlessly. "Junk Garage" is imagery of something discarded and worthless. "This flower is scorched" is an image of love (flower, a traditional symbol of love) which has been sullied. There is also some sexual imagery of "Honey Pot" which is an alluring, sexual attraction but ultimately unwanted. The "Paper Weight" is holding down something flimsy, again emphasizing the lack of substance to the relationship. "Plastic" emphasizes the artificiality of the relationship. (thanks, Gus - London, England)

Michael Stipe told Q magazine in 1992: "It's a love song, but it's certainly from the uglier side. It's pretty much about having given up on a relationship."

Peter Buck recalled to the recording of this track in a 2008 Rolling Stone interview: "'Country Feedback' - I thought that was a demo. Michael (Stipe) just sang it once. It was a letter he wrote to someone but didn't send. He just sang it."

On R.E.M.'s 2001 Perfect Square concert DVD, Michael Stipe says, "this is my favorite song of all time." (thanks, Mike - Hamilton, ON)

In an interview with the August 2010 edition of Uncut magazine, Kurt Cobain widow and Hole vocalist Courtney Love claimed this is one of two songs that Stipe wrote about her. She said: "I know 'Country Feedback' and 'Crush With Eyeliner' are about me. The line from Country Feedback: 'We've been through fake-a-breakdown/ Self Hurt/Plastics, collections/ Self Help, self pain/ EST, psychics, f--k all,' Michael (Stipe) talked me through that."

In the liner notes for Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, Bill Berry also calls this one of his favorite R.E.M. songs, adding "I think it wonderfully peculiar that this, somewhat gloomy dirge surfaced in a body of work that also included 'Shiny Happy People.'"

This was featured in the 1996 romantic drama Unhook the Stars, starring Marisa Tomei and Gena Rowlands.