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R.E.M.
Hello, and welcome to Lyric Interpretation 101. I have rather pompously assigned myself to be your instructor. Ever since the dawning days of psychedelia, lyrics have gone well beyond the literal meanings and linear construction of past eras. With so much vague imagery confronting us, the role of listener has become more challenging, causing us to rely on our power of intuition to "fill out" whatever the singer happens to be saying. The purpose of this course is to learn to accept our expanded role as the songwriter's interpreter. For our first subject, we will discuss the author's intentions and the ramifications of "The One I Love" by R.E.M (Don't you hate when teachers use ridiculous words like that?)
Michael Stipe has been loath to discuss the meaning of his lyrics, and I can hardly blame him. Unless the author has specific intentions of telling a story in a linear fashion, songs aren't usually intended to be read like prose, or even like poetry, so their meanings are interpreted differently by every person who hears them. As far as I can tell, Stipe's writing is almost purely impressionistic, painting word pictures that can be viewed in any number of ways. Writers who avoid literal interpretations of their work usually do so not to stymie their audience, but to assist them. By maintaining a distance from his work, Stipe makes it plain that once a song leaves his desk, it becomes public property, and the audience is welcome to indulge their own perceptions.
To draw an analogy, imagine a painting that, upon first encounter, leaves you with no particular image but still somehow leaves an impression. Whether it's the color, the texture, or whatever, you find yourself returning to it from time to time. After a while, images appear that weren't noticeable at first but now are as plain as day. As a result, you find yourself being drawn deeper and deeper into the canvas. You begin to "understand" what you see and apply meaning to certain brush strokes and the choices of color. Every time you look, the painting reveals itself further, and you become overwhelmed by the depth of meaning that you perceive. Your obsession causes you to search out information about the artist and his methods. Then one day you chance to read an interview, and you discover, in the painter's own words, that the painting was originally intended to be a floor plan of his new kitchen but it didn't come out right, so he let his kids throw paint at the canvas for half an hour. Boy, wouldn't you feel stupid. The point here is that your original impressions by far outweigh the mundanity of the truth. Whether or not you see things or feel things as the artist intended is irrelevant. Your impressions may be completely at odds with the artist's intent, but that only reveals the power of his creation. If a painting is evocative enough to inspire somebody to embellish it in his own particular way, then it has succeeded in stimulating both the imagination and the thought process.
In "The One I Love," Stipe's wordplay is very fragmentary, with each line containing an independent thought that often contradicts those that follow. "This one goes out to the one I love" is simple and straightforward enough, leading us to expect that another generic love song is probably on the way. Once coupled with the line "A simple prop to occupy my time," though, a whole new set of meanings is formed. It isn't the individual thoughts in each line, but rather the linkage of the two that arouses situational dichotomy. Is it about love at all, or is it only about a usurious, manipulative creep who abuses the power that he is granted through a sexual relationship? The impressions continue to deepen when Stipe yells the word "Fire!" as though he were a man fearing for his life. Is he talking about burning passion? Heated anger? Overwhelming destruction? Losing your soul to the powers of evil? (Let's not get too carried away.) Odds are that the real reason Stipe yells "Fire!" is because he happens to like the way the phonetic voicing of the word fits into the song. What word could possibly be more evocative than one describing elemental power? If we knew that the song had no particular meaning to the author, it would lessen our respect for our own imagery. If we found out the author's meaning was different from our impressions, it would be disappointing. In the end, all that matters is that we come away with something of our own.
Now for your homework assignment, I want you to go back and listen to all those damned Steely Dan recordings that used to drive you crazy.
 
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