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R.E.M. - Pop Song '89

R.E.M. - Pop Song '89 Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Green
Released: 1988

Pop Song '89 Lyrics

Pop Song '89 Song Chart

This was written as a play on the Doors song "Hello I Love You." Instead of talking to a girl about sex, it's about the weather or politics.

R.E.M. played an early version on their Document tour before this was released. It didn't even have words then, but the band had a lot of trouble keeping themselves from laughing because they had so much fun with it.

The video was directed by lead singer Michael Stipe. It features him and three women all dancing topless as a way to satirize videos that objectify women. When MTV asked for a censored version, Stipe superimposed black bars over the chests of all four dancers. He said, "A nipple is a nipple."

This was REM's 89th recorded track, if you count mini-album "Chronic Town" and B-sides. (thanks, Michael - New York, NY)

Michael Stipe said in the October, 1992 issue of Q magazine: "It's a complete piss-take. I guess it's the prototype of, and hopefully the end of, a pop song. It would be the last pop song ever."

Stipe has described it as one of his "fruit loop songs" along with "Shiny Happy People" and "Stand."

Peter Buck remembers thinking this sounded like a Dream Syndicate song and calling up frontman Steve Wynn to make sure he didn't mind. Wynn gave the OK and agreed it did sound a bit like the group's Karl Precoda on guitar.

This was featured on the TV series Parks and Recreation in the 2014 episode "Prom."