h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Absolutely hilarious! I particularly like the use of names ("operation lucy"! makes me think of...,well, never mind).
You´re certainly not the only one to struggle with Michael´s "murmur-style" mumbling. While his English is hard enough to understand, his French is even more of a challenge to listeners. "Talk about the Passion" contains the French phrase "Combien de temps" (how much time), which I interpreted as "Call me in to talk" (it really fits, if you listen closely...). Browsing the Usenet / REM-related www sites you´ll find a vast number of guesses at lyrics and, especially, meanings. For a good laugh I recommend reading those coming from Japanese or Corean authors / guessers. They usually come up with the most bizarre ideas (look out for songs like "Harborcoat" or "9-9")

And even by the time of comparatively clear vocalisation in 'Automatic for the People', that Georgia bugger was still managing to mess with my head. I sang along many a happy time to Man on the Moon, that sublime song of faith, doubt, hope and iconography. Obvoisly, it opens with "Martin Luther and the game of Life" - why yes, a highbrow reference to the father of the most profound schism in the Catholic church - see second-verse refs to Moses, Newton, Darwin et al. This was really satisfying... until I opened my newly-purchased AFTP songbook on the top of the No. 29 chugging into Camden Town and eralised that the bloody song actually starts with "Mott the Hoople & the game -"

Back to the mumbling lyric board. Now all I need is for someone to explain to me what the "little agit for the never-believer" refers to, Since I also went along happily for years thinging 'agit' was 'legend'. Thanks, Michael. Remind me to slap you round your shiny happy little pate when next we meet.

the little agit to the never-believer apparently refers to the people who still don't believe that andy is actually dead...
but about the mumbling - michael does it all the time, doesn't he? he maintains this is the only way he can still sing the old stuff, having forgotten the actual words yonks ago... and about ITEOTWAWKIAFF: there are about six or seven conflicting versions of the lyrics on the net, and michael says none of them is actually quite right (when he wrote that he had apparently already begun to keep copies of his manuscripts.. ). now, seeing this, and michael's own attitude to his early lyrical efforts, i don't see why we shouldn't just come up with our own versions... (even tho it IS fun to learn of ITEOTWAWKIAIFF by heart from a sort of reliable source - retroweb.com for instance - and then to baffle everyone by singing along without problems.. *g*) it's all part of the creative process of making an r.e.m. song your own, and michael loves some of the misinterpretations. so let's go ahead and f**k them all up, why not?!



StipeyZ.Rickenbacker


"It's call me when you try to wake her - I really don't know what this has got to with Jamaica..." - a slightly pissed-off Michael about the chorus of Sidewinder