Sweetness Follows (Goodbye REM)

Right about now, I’m 16 years old again singing Near Wild Heaven and dancing to Radio Song in my black blazer and khakis for no good reason. I'm picturing myself singing Shiny Happy People as a duet with my cousin Stephanie, who could knock Kate Pierson out of the park. I’m 17 years old riding through the backwoods of Virginia after visiting my (and Melissa's) old friend Gretchen, listening to The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight on my cassette walkman.

No matter what kind of mood I’m in, I can hear the first few chords of Pretty Persuasion and cheer up. I discovered Memphis wrestling, not through my affinity with Vince McMahon's WWE or Ted Turner's WCW, but through an Athens, Georgia-based quartet crowing about Andy Kaufman, who once feuded with “The King” Jerry Lawler.

Would you believe I actually wore eyeliner for a week when I was a freshman in college, not because I was pledging a frat as my friend Ryan likes to think? Nope. I wore it because I had a crush for Crush With Eyeliner.

My first childhood essentially ended when I discovered REM. From that day on, I embarked on my "second childhood", so to speak. I wasn't cool in high school, but REM spoke my language fluently.

Today, after 31 years and 15 albums, my all-time favorite band "called it a day." Today, after the initial shock and sadness, I realize something wonderful and scary all at once. My second childhood is over. I'm now a real adult.

I want to thank Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe (and everyone who filled in for Bill when he retired) for their immortal and timeless music. I will always treasure it, just as they still treasure each other today as much as they did in 1980. Today is not a divorce. It is not about a band breaking up. It's about boys becoming men, writing a new chapter after boyhood.

Goodbye, REM, and godspeed.