Comments on: Birthday Party! Cheesecake! Jellybean! Boom!

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 04:56:44 +0000

“JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?”

Fire. Definitely Fire.

By: Jodi

Jodi — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:37:46 +0000

In reply to Andrea. Andrea, were you at the now-famous Midway thunderstorm R.E.M concert back in the nineties?

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:36:18 +0000

It’s true that Stipe can’t remember the lyrics. I saw REM once in concert many many years ago and as he pulled out his crib sheet before singing that song, he said he’s never been able to remember the lyrics.

By: Jodi

Jodi — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 03:21:43 +0000

In reply to Barrett Chase.

I’ve heard that about Stipe too, and that he can’t remember the lyrics to ‘End of the World.’

I can understand the irritation with Boomers. I blame them for everything. I don’t recall having any affection for the Joel song, and really just a list of shit isn’t that clever at all. I bet if I tried hard enough I could write a ‘We Didn’t Star the Fire’ song for GenX.

By: Barrett Chase

Barrett Chase — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 03:18:59 +0000

I agree with the commenter who said “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is more annoying because Joel is being serious. I also dislike that song because almost everything in it happened before I was born. Growing up the extreme youngest in the family, I’ve always been annoyed by the Boomer idea that everything of import happened before I was born.

I’m not sure of the validity of this, but I heard somewhere a long time ago that Michael Stipe would just sing nonsense when we was coming up with a melody for a song, and that often those nonsense lyrics would make it into the final version. I’m on the fence about whether or not that’s annoying.