Ok. Well this is the big one. Everyone’s got an opinion about REM, and I am unabashed in my adoration. I fell in love with them in 1983 and though I’ve been happier with some records than others, I’ve never fallen out of love. I used to measure my life in REM tours. I don’t anymore, but they were by far the most influential band in my life. So here’s my REM story, the short version:

My roomate bought Murmur and listened to it all that time. I kind of liked it, but also thought the songs all sounded the same. I remember hearing a song from it on the radio one night. My friend said “I don’t like it.” I said “it’s tempting.” It was already luring me in, sneaking into the deepest parts of me. So when they came to town, I went. They played Headliners, a bar in Madison WI that’s long since gone. I was front and center. Peter Buck did all his frenzied Pete Townsend jumps. Michael Stipe clung to the microphone and shook with all his might. Mike Mills played the most melodic bass and looked like the nicest guy. And Bill Berry did his thing back behind the drums, looking cool, singing those great background vocals, and holding it all together.

In a world of 80s hairdos, they looked like the most down-to-earth guys in the world. It’s easy to forget now how completely different they were from the rest of what was going at the time. I was floored by the whole thing. And I was enchanted in the most literal sense by Michael. A spell had been cast. I’ve never shaken it and I hope I never do. After the show I went to a party where they happened to be and talked to Peter for a while. He was really nice to me.

About a month later a friend said she was going down to St. Louis to see them play at Six Flags (yes, the amusement park). I went along. A couple of days before the show I got “Wolves, Lower” in my head (still one of my favorites). When they took the stage for all 50 or so audience members, they opened with that song. That was it. No going back. They’d crawled into my core and were coming back at me from the outside. After the show my friend and I rode the roller coaster with them. Peter gave us his hotel room so we wouldn’t have to drive back that night. The next day our car didn’t work. They gave me a ride in their van as far as they could and loaned me $20 for the bus the rest of the way home.

I used to lie in the dark with headphones listening to Chronic Town, Murmur, and later Reckoning and it was like I could feel things getting unlocked inside me that had always been there but that I didn’t know about. It was like a hard and shiny veneer that I had thought was important was falling away and a real me was emerging. That is what happened. I did become me while listening to those records. They did change my life. And the shows just kept making the transformation more and more powerful.

I’ve seen them dozens of times, mostly in the 80s when I was young and unencumbered and my friends and I would hop in our van and follow them around the midwest. I saw them most recently in 2004. Some of their shows have been only okay. Many have moved me like nothing else ever has.

Over the years I ended up spending more time with Michael than Peter when I’d see them, having dinner before the show or a drink afterwards. I never got to know Bill or Mike. I never see them except when they tour, we didn’t become close by any stretch. But they still put me on the guest list and have always treated me with kindness. Michael still makes time to say hello. Peter and I swap kid stories and swoon about the Buzzcocks. I would have been the easiest person in the world to leave behind as their fame grew. That they’ve been as loyal to me as I’ve been to them has made one of the great pleasures of my life that much better.