Fall on Me
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| “Fall On Me” | |||||
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| Single by R.E.M. from the album Lifes Rich Pageant |
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| Released | August 1986 | ||||
| Format | 7" Vinyl | ||||
| Recorded | 1986 | ||||
| Genre | College Rock | ||||
| Length | 2:50 | ||||
| Label | I.R.S. Records | ||||
| Producer | Don Gehman | ||||
| R.E.M. singles chronology | |||||
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"Fall On Me" is a song by R.E.M. from their fourth album, 1986's Lifes Rich Pageant. It was the first of two singles released from that LP. It peaked at #94 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it never charted on the UK Singles Charts.
Though Stipe described the song once as "pretty much a song about oppression," the song is about acid rain and its effects on the environment, hence the first line of the chorus, "Don't fall on me." [1]
In audience patter prior to a performance of the song on VH1 Storytellers in 1998, Stipe mentioned the apocryphal tale of Galileo Galilei dropping feathers and lead weights off the Leaning Tower of Pisa (to test the laws of gravity) as partial inspiration for the first verse:
“I was reading an article in Boston when I was on tour with the Golden Palominos, and Chris Stamey showed me this article about this guy that did an experiment from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, whereby he dropped a pound of feathers and a pound of iron to prove that there was... a difference in the... [struggling]... density. What did he prove? I don’t even know. [A man shouts out from the audience] "What?" asked Stipe. "They fall just as fast," repeated the disembodied voice. “They fall just as fast," echoed Stipe. "Thank you very much. Gentleman on the balcony there! And so there it is... and uhhh. [Officially lost for words, cue laughter] I’ll just shut up and sing it.”
At first, the song was accompanied by a different melody when it started life in 1985, but it had been entirely rewritten by the time of its recording. The counter-melody in the second verse is actually the song's original tune. [1]
The song is something of a duet between Stipe and Mike Mills, with the two of them sharing vocals prominently during the bridge and chorus. Mills takes lead vocals for the bridge.
The B-side to this single is an instrumental entitled "Rotary Ten", a song which has been described by guitarist Peter Buck as "a movie theme without a movie." It would gain a sequel of sorts, "Rotary Eleven," for the "Losing My Religion" single in 1991.
Stipe directed the video for this song, in which lyrics flash over the screen, superimposed over upside-down black and white footage of a quarry filmed by Michael himself. Take note of a spelling error: the word "foresight" is misspelled "forsight."
[edit] Track listing
All songs written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe unless otherwise indicated.
- "Fall on Me" - 2:50
- "Rotary Ten" - 1:58
UK 12"
- "Fall on Me" - 2:50
- "Rotary Ten" - 1:58
- "Toys In The Attic" (Aerosmith cover, written by Steven Tyler & Joe Perry) - 2:26
[edit] Cover
The folk supergroup, Cry Cry Cry (Dar Williams, Richard Shindell, and Lucy Kaplansky) used "Fall on Me" as the opening track for their eponymous album of cover songs.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Black, Johnny (2004). Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-776-5.
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