Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 3, 1995 TAG: 9501030006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But it's up there somewhere, debated line-by-line, mumble-by-mumble, like details from the Warren Commission report. It's now part of our culture. And the legions who care about such things usually harbor strong opinions - or at least puzzled expressions.
Is it: They call me Cliff/into the holy cow?
Or: They called the clip/a two-headed cow?
Or: Mumblemumblemumble?
Only Michael Stipe knows for sure, although, as the mystery unravels, you will find he doesn't even know all of the time what he's saying. Nor is he willing to tell what he does know. That's part of the R.E.M. mystique.
And Stipe - the band's singer and primary wordsmith - wisely keeps his mumbles close to the chest, and that only fuels the debate and ultimately leads to Lynchburg College computer-services specialist Kipp Teague.
Kipp Teague is our Jim Garrison in this serial, a man in dogged pursuit of the ever-elusive words to "Second Guessing," "Can't Get There From Here" and countless more songs that, to the average listener, sound like gobbledygook.
However, to the self-trained ear, like Kipp Teague's, and others like Teague around the country, phrases and lyrics from the gobbledygook can emerge, followed by complete songs, albums and finally an entire catalog of R.E.M. lyrics, give or take a mumble here or a mumble there.
Teague, 38, goes about this work quietly. He only reluctantly agreed to an interview, fearing that he would be branded as some crazed R.E.M. zealot, which he most assuredly is not. He is just a fan, like many fans of the group, hoping to make sense of Stipe's befuddling lyrics.
"I don't put them up on a pedestal," he said.
In fact, his interest in R.E.M. began relatively late in the game, in 1987, when he heard the song "Cuyahoga," from the band's fourth album. By 1987, R.E.M. was already a college favorite, and Stipe's lyrical idiosyncrasies long had been a subject of exhaustive debate in various music magazines.
It took Teague another six years before he became the unofficial R.E.M. word sleuth.
In 1992, he linked up to the Internet, a worldwide system of computer networks that allow its users to exchange information on a vast number of topics, including R.E.M. But Teague found that the R.E.M. computer chat consisted mostly of gossip and unconfirmed Stipe sightings around the band's hometown, Athens, Ga. "This is sounding very juvenile coming from a 38-year-old, isn't it?"
What really spurred his interest, though, was finding a computer file of R.E.M. lyrics maintained by a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Teague also found a core of several hundred fans around the country who continually updated the file and raged an ongoing, wired debate about its content.
This file set the R.E.M. fans apart from similar fans who link up about other musical acts. "That's the thing about R.E.M. There was a void there. Most bands release their lyrics," Teague said.
But he found the compilation "horribly inaccurate. ... A lot of dashes, a lot of fill-in-the-blanks," he said.
"I immediately suggested tons of corrections."
At the same time, there also were songs that seemed complete that had been gleaned, Teague learned, from the R.E.M. Fan Club newsletter or from published interviews with band or through Internet consensus.
"It's not like I came in with these great revelations of song lyrics," he said.
In 1993, when the MIT student graduated, Teague inherited the task of maintaining the lyric file, primarily because nobody else seemed to want the responsibility. It also gave him the chance to leave his own stamp on the lyrics, particularly where there were gaps.
Not that he rules the lyric file like a dictator. "I've been wrong," he admitted. "I've come up with my interpretations that were proven wrong, but are still accepted as correct, to my dismay."
He said that's the downside. "You can put words in the band's mouth, and it comes out as the truth."
There are tricks to the trade, he said, citing bootleg recordings of R.E.M. concerts. "If you get lucky, it's a bad mix and the vocals are way out in front, and you can understand more."
Still, a certain amount of mystery remains.
R.E.M. does not acknowledge the compiled lyrics as its official catalog, and except for two song books the band issued for its 10th and 11th releases, "Automatic for the People" and "Out of Time," there is no way for Teague to check for accuracy.
But the source himself praised the catalog.
Last summer, R.E.M.'s Stipe sat down for some informal questions and answers with a few of his electronic fans on America Online, an interactive computer conversation service.
"About a year ago, this guy sent a bunch of on-line stuff to the office, care of me, and I looked through the lyrics and they were pretty right," Stipe said under the computer alias, Stipey. "There are some mistakes, but the gist is there. By the way, whoever sent me that stuff, thanks a lot. It was a lot to read ... but it was cool."
Stipey even submitted to some specific questions from Teague about lyrics - to a point.
Parts of their dialogue follows.
Teague: In "Gardening at Night," what precedes, "But they were busy in rows?"
Stipey: Hey Kipp, I have no idea what the words to "Gardening" are. I always wing it live. Mike [Mills, R.E.M.'s bassist] said, "Fly to carry each his burden."
Teague: Better one: what lyric follows, "We are hope despite the times," in ``These Days?''
Stipey: "We are hope despite the times ... All of a sudden these days, happy throngs." I must be kidding. "Take this joy, wherever, wherever you go." I made Mike sing this part at the end: "Take away the scattered bones of my meal." Oh Lord.
Teague: "Driver 8." Pilot or Violet?
Stipey: Violet? Don't know where that came from, but I didn't write a violet into the song.
Teague: "Little America." What follows "tree tar-black brer sap?"
Stipey: No idea.
Teague: "Sitting Still." What is the chorus?
Stipey: Come on now that is an embarrassing collection of vowels that I strung together some 400 years ago. Basically nonsense.
Which brings up whole new issue: If it's all nonsense anyway, why try to decode the words?
It's the principle of it, Teague explained, the mystery. The words may be meaningless, but they are still words. So which words are they?
Perhaps it is a futile exercise. "I'm trying to extract the concrete from what is meant to be abstract," he said, finally calling the quest "ultimately ridiculous." "I don't know why I want to know, but I do."
To quote from Stipe and R.E.M.: "When the world is a monster/bad to swallow you whole."
Or is it: Mumblemumblemumble?
Mumblemumblemumble
by CNB