R.E.M.

Unique sound.

Bill Berry’s send off.

The apotheosis of their work.

Patti Smith.

Give me some interesting words, some words that I can.

Are Patti Smith and Michael Stipe enacting roles in this song, or playing themselves? Is Patti’s part supposed to be a figment of Stipe’s imagination, a hallucination? Is it her recorded music that Stipe is listening to in the bus and reacting to? Is it a love song? Or is the relationship between singer and listener just that intimate?

Something very intimate, stream of conscious, middle of the night bus ride, a letter that we get to read.

Why not one of the following?

  • (E-Bow) The Letter
  • E-Bow, The Letter
  • E-Bow (The Letter)
  • E-Bow / The Letter

There is something willfully obtuse about the way it is titled, something pretentious, and