REM video "Losing My Religion"

[Spoke]

@RickJay

Going by the lyrics it could also mean the narrator has lost a love, or a chance at his love, and has put him/her up on such a pedestal that he doesn’t know what to do without having this person to worship - e.g. he’s lost his religion. Inasmuch as they meant anything by the lyrics, it reads to me as if it may be a double entendre.

That’s more or less it. It’s about having a secret crush on someone and being afraid to reveal it (and thereby risk losing that object of worship). Stipe confirmed it a while back in an interview.

The video? Silly as all get out. But R.E.M. had a lot of good videos, too, so they’re allowed one over-the-top pretentious one.

[Spoke]

@Miller

It’s based off of this painting.

Huh. That’s “doubting Thomas” there with the finger.

[Little_Plastic_Ninja]

Gosh, I’d never seen the Everybody Hurts video before. I love it.

I’m sort of charmed by the earnestness of the Losing My Religion one. There’s a lot of references to paintings in that – the guy flung against the tree with arrows is St. Sebastian, of course, and in the scene with doubting Thomas I think the girl to the left of the action is from some Vermeer?

[Hazle_Weatherfield]

@The_Devil_s_Grandmother

My brain had done just the reverse, I had forgotten the flailing white guy and remembered only the very old man with wings. I really liked the video, but perhaps that is because I had just read GGM’s The old man with enormous wings.

Holy Crap! Same here!

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@RickJay

While that’s very bad, it surely has to be topped by Live’s “Dolphin’s Cry.” I’ve never seen the video and I don’t need to. Just the title - “Dolphin’s Cry.” That’s hilarious; you’d expect to see that airbrushed onto a cheap black sweatshirt.

What’s weird is despite that cheesy lyric, the song is pretty damn catchy. Live was a really good band (for a time).

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@spoke-

But R.E.M. had a lot of good videos, too, so they’re allowed one over-the-top pretentious one.

Like the one for “Stand”?