Creative Stories: R.E.M.'s Biggest Hit

How Creativity Made REM International Superstars

In the late 1980s, rock band REM were kings of college radio. 

Rolling Stone put them on the cover in 1987 and called them ‘America’s Best Rock and Roll Band’ – but wondered if they could really take on Top 40 radio.

The band had some mainstream success with songs like ‘Stand’, ‘It’s The End of the World as We Know It’ and ‘The One I Love.’

Then in 1990 they began working on a new album – and a song that would change everything.

Lead guitarist Peter Buck was experimenting with the mandolin and came up with a riff. Next Bill Berry added the drums, and Mike Mills came up with the bass line.

Lead singer Michael Stipe listened to what they had created and wrote the lyrics, taking inspiration from The Police hit ‘Every Breath You Take.’

The song was different than anything REM had done before. It was written in a minor key, which is rarely the recipe for a hit song. It didn’t have a chorus. And it was a rock song – built on a mandolin riff.

The title of the song, ‘Losing My Religion,’ came from a Southern expression; to ‘lose your religion’ was to be frustrated, at the end of your rope – though many people read more into the lyrics and what the song represented.

The band recorded the song in a day. Peter Buck says if you listen closely, you can hear where he ‘muffled’ the mandolin on one of the verses. 

“I thought, ‘Well, I can’t go back and punch it up, because it's supposed to be a live track.’ That was the whole idea.”

After the band finished the song, they shared it with their record label, saying this would be their first single off the new album.

The record label scoffed.

A rock song with a mandolin? Written in a minor chord? With no discernible chorus? 

It would never work.

But the band persisted. 

And ‘Losing My Religion’ was released in February 1991 as the lead single from REM’s forthcoming album, ‘Out of Time.’

The song – that so many had doubted – catapulted REM to new levels of fame. ‘Losing My Religion’ made them global superstars.

REM had other hits over the years, including ‘Everybody Hurts’ and ‘Man on the Moon’ – but ‘Losing My Religion’ remains the band’s most successful song.