“Blue,” the last song on the last album to be recorded by genuine art stars R.E.M., is a wonderful career summation with urgently spoken word verses that recall Out of Time‘s “Belong” and brings back Patti Smith to close it out with the ultimate embrace.
Maybe the next thing will be a poetry album. I like this verse from the middle quite a bit:
I am made by my times
I am a creation of now
Shaken with the cracks and crevices
I’m not giving up easy
I will not fold
I don’t have much
But what I have is gold
