The lyric “I’ve got tar on my feet and I can’t see the birds look down and laugh at me” is just such an evocative lyric. I don’t know what Michael meant, but to my ears it’s a very southern allegory,, of poverty, depression or maybe humility? Shoeless walking on hot tar roads, head held down. This song floored me decades before i knew it was about Cobain. What I love about his writing is that evokes imagination- i have no idea what that lyric means to him, but it meant something to me.
I always interpreted it to mean that they were being held in place or pulled down by the "tar", like quicksand. The birds look down and "laugh" because the person in question feels like they're mocking him with their ability to fly, they represent freedom.
It was REM's best album, i use to listen to that album when I was in Pre K, saw the picture of the cat as a little kid, put the CD in and became hooked!!
Monster was my first Full Album I listened to.. evert track seemed to get better and better. Every time I think of R.E.M. albums I picture Monster or Reveal
Love love love this song and REM ...!!! 25 years on .... and it’s still current and fresh ...!!! They were a group of 4 individuals with more talent and uniqueness than any others of their time.
Yeah all those stars drip down like butter And promises are sweet We hold out our pans with our hands to catch them We eat them up, drink them up, up, up, up Hey, let me in Hey, let me in I only wish that I could hear you whisper down Mr Fisher moved to a less peculiar ground He gathered up his loved ones and he brought them all around To say goodbye Nice try. Hey, let me in Yeah yeah yeah Hey, let me in I had a mind to try to stop you Let me in. Let me in Well, I got tar on my feet and I can't see all the birds look down and laugh at me Clumsy, crawling out of my skin Hey, let me in Yeah yeah yeah Hey, let me in Hey, let me in Yeah yeah yeah Hey, let me in Traduci in italiano
Falls to Climb is magnificent, one of several excellent songs on the not-so-excellent-overall Up. I've recently been really loving Around the Sun-it's got a dismal reputation and some irritating quirks, but the songs are superb.
@@fredh1720 I love Up. Around The Sun I wasn't overly fond of, but however it DOES have The Outsiders and The Ascent of Man, so I can forgive it, as those are two beautiful songs.
@@markhammond2532 I used to be very fond of Up, but to my ear it's just a little dense, and it's certainly too long. Airportman and Why Not Smile are both nice songs but are allowed to go on for far too long, whereas Walk Unafraid and Hope I'm just not that big a fan of at all. Around the Sun is a strange listen. I do think all the songs are brilliant, but the worst version of Final Straw you will ever hear is the one on the record. I particularly like the title track.
@@fredh1720 I’ve been listening to R.E.M. since I came into this world (they are my dads all time favourite band) and I think i would have to pick Around The Sun as my favourite album (not an easy choice to make with the number of great albums they have)
I love this song. Such raw emotion. And this album is one of my favorites of theirs. Cannot believe as popular as they were that they are still underrated. Case in point: How many people know about this song?
i bought this album when it first came out, alot of REM fans dont like this album since it is so different from their 80s and early 90s happy go lucky stuff
@@cool3865 Your comment is so off-base that it approaches insanity: I wouldn’t call Murmur, Reckoning, Fables, Life’s, Document, Green, Out or Automatic “Happy Go Lucky.” You’re referring to ONE FREAKING SONG: Shiny Happy People, which was more than anything else a way to get that woman involved, from the B52’s, especially since Stipe felt a DEEP KINSHIP with that band. Let’s just take a sample of songs, starting from the beginning: 9-9, Pretty Persuasion, Driver 8, Cuyahoga, These Days, Orange Crush, World Leader Pretend, Texarkana. I wouldn’t call any of them, (or any of the MORE THAN 60 other songs from those albums) “Happy Go Lucky.” Let Me In fit perfectly in their career. It was Distorted as a tribute to Kurt. Obviously, the entire song is an expression of feelings of guilt and sorrow, but perhaps the Wall of Sound is the wall Michael couldn’t break through to help Kurt. Monster was a GUITAR ALBUM, but so was LIFE’S RICH PAGEANT.
This song moved me the moment I heard it on the newly released 'Monster' album in 1994. Then I found out what it was about. The line 'I had a mind to try to stop you' still tears me up to this day. Beautiful song, RIP Kurt ❤️🖤❤️
Ive always LOVED this whole album and especially this song and never knew it was about my fave all time band Nirvanas beloved Kurt Cobain! I love Kurt Cobain and adore REM what a whole new spin on this song!! Monster will always be my fave REM album but everything REM does is amazing
The whole album is BRILLIANT but yes I always play this song over and over on it easily most played song on album and I never knew it was about Kurt Cobain and Michael and the guys trying to see how life until just now!
Yeah all those stars drip down like butter And promises are sweet We hold out our pans with our hands to catch them We eat them up, drink them up, up, up, up Hey, let me in Hey, let me in I only wish that I could hear you whisper down Mr Fisher moved to a less peculiar ground He gathered up his loved ones and he brought them all around To say goodbye Nice try. Hey, let me in Yeah yeah yeah Hey, let me in I had a mind to try to stop you Let me in. Let me in Well, I got tar on my feet and I can't see all the birds look down and laugh at me Clumsy, crawling out of my skin Hey, let me in Yeah yeah yeah Hey, let me in Hey, let me in Yeah yeah yeah Hey, let me in
Whenever I hear Michael singing Jimmy Webbs Wichita Lineman or Galveston it smacks me of what brilliance would have been created if He and Kurt had ever got to collaborate.
Kurt Cobain admire so much R.E.M. How do they do it? Cobain said while admiring their music. Michael Stipe knew about what was happening, so he sent a ticket plane and a driver to invite Cobain to his house and collaborate in some compositions, trying to keep him occupied because of his serious depression. Kurt Cobain never showed up, days later was found at the scene of the tragedy.
I've forever imagined an experimental video for "Let Me In" as a lonely, solitary small puffy cloud in the sky shot in Super 8 and accomplished in one long take. Filmed at 18 fps there's some lush movement as the cloud slowly dissolves to nothingness and finally an empty blue sky by song's end. Gone forever.
Michael Mills tocando a guitarra de Kurt Cobain doada ao grupo pela doidona Courtney Love num raro momento de lucidez. Linda e clássica canção. Emocionante demais!!!!!
Hopefully when a lot of the shit that has grabbed music headline (Beyonce etc) are rightly consigned to the retrospective dustbin this band and others will still be savoured, giving light and meaning to people.
I bought this album on the day it was released, and absolutely hated it. I thought it was some kind of wind up. Over the years it has grown on me so much. I guess I wasn't ready for it at first......
@@supererikman5331 that's a big big statement. lol. think there are some songs on Monster that didn't age well. King of Comedy.Tongue. never liked Strange Currencies, which was just a reworking of a VU song. Kenneth, I don't sleep, Let me In, I took your name are all really good.
There's an interview with Stipe talking about how distraught he was about losing his friend River Phoenix and how he had writer's block..then Kurt Cobain died and he was crushed and this song is about him. They were looking forward making music together...Kurt didn't kill himself it's all propaganda smfh I feel so sorry for Kurt and his daughter. R.I.P Kurt Donald Cobain
It's recorded on a prototype "Jagstang" that Kurt had designed in collaboration with Fender, but died before it went into production. I've heard that Michael Stipe was gifted it from Courtney Love after Kurt died, and Stipe gifted it to REM. Peter Buck is playing the same guitar in the "What's the Frequency Kenneth" music video, strung backwards because Kurt was left-handed.
@@toad8840 sure sure, right, so now you know more than police and forensic departments wich both stated the scene was manipulated and a lot of stuff were moved before they arrived and had to close the case in suicide because they couldn't get more clues, they should ask you what happened then, you seem so sure you make it seem as if you were there and saw him shot himself! Just for the record I'm not saying you're wrong, actually that is the current label of the case and it is closed, but you shouldn't be asking people to shut up like that when you have no clue about anything further than what you read or heard from the media.
@AmeliaRose I also think the raw, chaotic, noisy guitars add a lot of texture to the song and also serve as a sort of...audio metaphor. The guitar is loud and intense and overwhelming, and Stipe is trying hard to sing through it. Like he's wanting the noise of the guitars to break away and "let him in". I think it represents how he felt about Cobain. Like no matter what he did he couldn't break through the "noise" that was going through Cobain's head. They do sorta harmonize at the end, but it's not enough...
The lyric “I’ve got tar on my feet and I can’t see the birds look down and laugh at me” is just such an evocative lyric. I don’t know what Michael meant, but to my ears it’s a very southern allegory,, of poverty, depression or maybe humility? Shoeless walking on hot tar roads, head held down.
This song floored me decades before i knew it was about Cobain.
What I love about his writing is that evokes imagination- i have no idea what that lyric means to him, but it meant something to me.
Black tar heroin was also du jour
Clumsy, falling out of my skin.
Black tar Heroin is keeping him stuck to the earth, and he is too out of it to see the birds laugh down at him as he is stuck in a dirty mess.
tar as in black tar herion?
I always interpreted it to mean that they were being held in place or pulled down by the "tar", like quicksand. The birds look down and "laugh" because the person in question feels like they're mocking him with their ability to fly, they represent freedom.
Beautiful song
RIP Kurt 🖤🖤
RIP Kurt.
You are sorely missed by us all.
This will be my suicide song
💔
1994, I turned 17. Greatest year for music ever.
La mejor época, yo tenía 16 años 🥺
I was 20 then, I feel the same
Ive been listening to this song since i was a teenager. Its beyond beautiful. So much emotion
..
Not many songs have a feel like this one. It makes you feel something, whether you want to or not. Powerful. Somber.
Monster is, in fact, a monster. most underrated REM work. This song -- lord, a power punch.
It was REM's best album, i use to listen to that album when I was in Pre K, saw the picture of the cat as a little kid, put the CD in and became hooked!!
@@supererikman5331 that sounds awesome
Underrated??? By who?????
Monster was my first Full Album I listened to.. evert track seemed to get better and better. Every time I think of R.E.M. albums I picture Monster or Reveal
OH God this song hurts. Pure Masterpiece, but it hurts. Back then the world was full of beautiful souls who have gone and not replaced.
What a beautiful song. It's been so many years as if I heard it yesterday always heard it. Amazing song. From an amazing band & album.❤
High point of the album
Love love love this song and REM ...!!! 25 years on .... and it’s still current and fresh ...!!! They were a group of 4 individuals with more talent and uniqueness than any others of their time.
And from freakin' Georgia
The moog intro is beyond beauty. RIP Kurt 💔
Yeah all those stars drip down like butter
And promises are sweet
We hold out our pans with our hands to catch them
We eat them up, drink them up, up, up, up
Hey, let me in
Hey, let me in
I only wish that I could hear you whisper down
Mr Fisher moved to a less peculiar ground
He gathered up his loved ones and he brought them all around
To say goodbye
Nice try.
Hey, let me in
Yeah yeah yeah
Hey, let me in
I had a mind to try to stop you
Let me in. Let me in
Well, I got tar on my feet and I can't see all the birds look down and laugh at me
Clumsy, crawling out of my skin
Hey, let me in
Yeah yeah yeah
Hey, let me in
Hey, let me in
Yeah yeah yeah
Hey, let me in
Traduci in italiano
This and Falls to Climb will always be my two favourite songs by a band I've loved for decades now.
Falls to Climb is magnificent, one of several excellent songs on the not-so-excellent-overall Up. I've recently been really loving Around the Sun-it's got a dismal reputation and some irritating quirks, but the songs are superb.
@@fredh1720 I love Up. Around The Sun I wasn't overly fond of, but however it DOES have The Outsiders and The Ascent of Man, so I can forgive it, as those are two beautiful songs.
@@markhammond2532 I used to be very fond of Up, but to my ear it's just a little dense, and it's certainly too long. Airportman and Why Not Smile are both nice songs but are allowed to go on for far too long, whereas Walk Unafraid and Hope I'm just not that big a fan of at all.
Around the Sun is a strange listen. I do think all the songs are brilliant, but the worst version of Final Straw you will ever hear is the one on the record. I particularly like the title track.
@@fredh1720 I’ve been listening to R.E.M. since I came into this world (they are my dads all time favourite band) and I think i would have to pick Around The Sun as my favourite album (not an easy choice to make with the number of great albums they have)
I love this song. Such raw emotion. And this album is one of my favorites of theirs. Cannot believe as popular as they were that they are still underrated. Case in point: How many people know about this song?
i bought this album when it first came out, alot of REM fans dont like this album since it is so different from their 80s and early 90s happy go lucky stuff
@@cool3865 Your comment is so off-base that it approaches insanity: I wouldn’t call Murmur, Reckoning, Fables, Life’s, Document, Green, Out or Automatic “Happy Go Lucky.” You’re referring to ONE FREAKING SONG: Shiny Happy People, which was more than anything else a way to get that woman involved, from the B52’s, especially since Stipe felt a DEEP KINSHIP with that band. Let’s just take a sample of songs, starting from the beginning: 9-9, Pretty Persuasion, Driver 8, Cuyahoga, These Days, Orange Crush, World Leader Pretend, Texarkana. I wouldn’t call any of them, (or any of the MORE THAN 60 other songs from those albums) “Happy Go Lucky.” Let Me In fit perfectly in their career. It was Distorted as a tribute to Kurt. Obviously, the entire song is an expression of feelings of guilt and sorrow, but perhaps the Wall of Sound is the wall Michael couldn’t break through to help Kurt. Monster was a GUITAR ALBUM, but so was LIFE’S RICH PAGEANT.
Michael betrayed Kurt. And he knows it. So do I.
My favourite Monster's track. First time I listened when I bought it
@@wildmercuryfilms you summed that up so perfectly I couldn’t agree more
So many cry for help on the inside but most are blind and only see the outside.
One of my favorite songs on the monster album. Love it!
Stipe soaring over the top of the guitar in the last couple minutes. Done.
fantastic song !!!!
During the January to March 2021 lockdown I became really fond of this album and was listening to it most days whilst working.
Love the guitar just amazing work from REM
This song moved me the moment I heard it on the newly released 'Monster' album in 1994. Then I found out what it was about. The line 'I had a mind to try to stop you' still tears me up to this day. Beautiful song, RIP Kurt ❤️🖤❤️
Ive always LOVED this whole album and especially this song and never knew it was about my fave all time band Nirvanas beloved Kurt Cobain! I love Kurt Cobain and adore REM what a whole new spin on this song!! Monster will always be my fave REM album but everything REM does is amazing
Love the band. Their last great,consistent work. Underrated.
Reveal was a gem, imo.
"I had a mind to try and stop you" 💔
Haunting..
Me, seventeen in 1997, Cambridge-MA, night, snow outside my window, anguish, feeling like an outcast...
This song at Slane Castle will remain in my mind till my last breath.
Link?
@@rh5466 Sausage?
That song touching so deep
i know this song is about Kurt, but River Phoenix comes to my mind everytime i hear it. Its so beautiful and sad at the same time.
An absolute masterpiece... just forget the rest of Monster, this song is soooo outstanding on this album!
The whole album is BRILLIANT but yes I always play this song over and over on it easily most played song on album and I never knew it was about Kurt Cobain and Michael and the guys trying to see how life until just now!
Yeah all those stars drip down like butter
And promises are sweet
We hold out our pans with our hands to catch them
We eat them up, drink them up, up, up, up
Hey, let me in
Hey, let me in
I only wish that I could hear you whisper down
Mr Fisher moved to a less peculiar ground
He gathered up his loved ones and he brought them all around
To say goodbye
Nice try.
Hey, let me in
Yeah yeah yeah
Hey, let me in
I had a mind to try to stop you
Let me in. Let me in
Well, I got tar on my feet and I can't see all the birds look down and laugh at me
Clumsy, crawling out of my skin
Hey, let me in
Yeah yeah yeah
Hey, let me in
Hey, let me in
Yeah yeah yeah
Hey, let me in
I always liked how it goes on for so long with just distorted electric guitar and vocals. What other songs do that??
Anyone else would have brought in drums and bass or just made it acoustic. It's a very interesting choice for sure
Great song.
Whenever I hear Michael singing Jimmy Webbs Wichita Lineman or Galveston it smacks me of what brilliance would have been created if He and Kurt had ever got to collaborate.
Kurt Cobain admire so much R.E.M.
How do they do it? Cobain said while admiring their music. Michael Stipe knew about what was happening, so he sent a ticket plane and a driver to invite Cobain to his house and collaborate in some compositions, trying to keep him occupied because of his serious depression. Kurt Cobain never showed up, days later was found at the scene of the tragedy.
I so love this
Written about Kurt in one cut !!!
I've forever imagined an experimental video for "Let Me In" as a lonely, solitary small puffy cloud in the sky shot in Super 8 and accomplished in one long take. Filmed at 18 fps there's some lush movement as the cloud slowly dissolves to nothingness and finally an empty blue sky by song's end. Gone forever.
Do it, then do it......
Great song. Love it.
To die for....
Fantastisch 🤘
Michael Mills tocando a guitarra de Kurt Cobain doada ao grupo pela doidona Courtney Love num raro momento de lucidez. Linda e clássica canção. Emocionante demais!!!!!
5 April 1994 🖤
Saddest fucking day ever.
Classic
Por está canción me enamoré de "Monster"... 😍😍😍😍
This and New Adventures in Hi-Fi are criminally underrated.
Hopefully when a lot of the shit that has grabbed music headline (Beyonce etc) are rightly consigned to the retrospective dustbin this band and others will still be savoured, giving light and meaning to people.
It's that rollerskate circus organ...
REM was very good to Kurt. the last effort to save him .
R.I.P Kurt
Amazing remaster
love you Kurt
I bought this album on the day it was released, and absolutely hated it. I thought it was some kind of wind up.
Over the years it has grown on me so much. I guess I wasn't ready for it at first......
Monster is by far my favorite album by them.
why?? it was their best album in my opinion
@@supererikman5331 that's a big big statement. lol. think there are some songs on Monster that didn't age well. King of Comedy.Tongue. never liked Strange Currencies, which was just a reworking of a VU song. Kenneth, I don't sleep, Let me In, I took your name are all really good.
@@atomeyes99
king of comedy was good. you may have not been a fan, but I will stand by my statement that in my opinion it is their best album
Plz tell who knows, in this song beautifully sounding guitar originally belongs to Kurt Cobain? Is it true or just rumors?
Pavlo Khvorostjankin All true.....ruclips.net/video/rNKIOOYOEOs/видео.html. 1:18
According to songfacts.com this was recorded on one of Kurt's Fenders, given to Peter by Courtney.
There's an interview with Stipe talking about how distraught he was about losing his friend River Phoenix and how he had writer's block..then Kurt Cobain died and he was crushed and this song is about him. They were looking forward making music together...Kurt didn't kill himself it's all propaganda smfh I feel so sorry for Kurt and his daughter. R.I.P Kurt Donald Cobain
It's recorded on a prototype "Jagstang" that Kurt had designed in collaboration with Fender, but died before it went into production. I've heard that Michael Stipe was gifted it from Courtney Love after Kurt died, and Stipe gifted it to REM. Peter Buck is playing the same guitar in the "What's the Frequency Kenneth" music video, strung backwards because Kurt was left-handed.
@@toad8840 sure sure, right, so now you know more than police and forensic departments wich both stated the scene was manipulated and a lot of stuff were moved before they arrived and had to close the case in suicide because they couldn't get more clues, they should ask you what happened then, you seem so sure you make it seem as if you were there and saw him shot himself!
Just for the record I'm not saying you're wrong, actually that is the current label of the case and it is closed, but you shouldn't be asking people to shut up like that when you have no clue about anything further than what you read or heard from the media.
❤
Bill Berry grounded the band.
💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
Alright, which one of you cut onions to this song?😣
Requiescat in Pace Kurdt Cobain. Have had a Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered for him & having 1 offered for Courtney and Francis soon.
Bela homenagem ao Kurt!
USING KURT COBAINS GUITAR.
really??
@@carmentaborda971 YES REALLY. LET ME IN IS ABOUT KURT.
@@jamesjackson-df1hi and E-bow the letter is about river phoenix. beautiful songs both
@@carmentaborda971 absolutely, i prefer the "lifes rich pagaent" & "document" myself, but i do love "tongue" 7 "let me in" too.
@@carmentaborda971 Kurt's blue Jagstang was used on this 👍
We miss you Kurt.
We know Dylan.We now know.
Loyo Kurt 🤘💥🌈
👉💜👈
Is it yóú Robert..? I've alréády let you in my friend...my dárling brother...🙏🙏🙏
Born and raised. KC.
Kansas City.
Curdt Kobain
This song is about Kurt Cobain
At or for
About as I stated clearly.
I think I've read an interview that Michael said it was for him
@@paullagasse5504 it is . Mike is playing Kurt's Guitar.
@@kwakamonkeyyes
This is great but I prefer the original mix. The guitar is even louder and noisier.
nope. the remix is great.
@AmeliaRose I also think the raw, chaotic, noisy guitars add a lot of texture to the song and also serve as a sort of...audio metaphor. The guitar is loud and intense and overwhelming, and Stipe is trying hard to sing through it. Like he's wanting the noise of the guitars to break away and "let him in". I think it represents how he felt about Cobain. Like no matter what he did he couldn't break through the "noise" that was going through Cobain's head. They do sorta harmonize at the end, but it's not enough...
Dynamite
This was about Kurt cobain😭😭😭😭😢😢😢
A GUITARRA usada pra gravar era do kurt
Første setning: "Jeg har lyst til å styrte ned et par øl"
Danish is really a weird language as for pronunciation.
@@rcic3706 also norwegian, the first sentence he sings literally sounds like what I wrote. Meaning "I want to chug a couple of beers".
Yes, I had understood it. I used to speak some Norwegian. Sometimes it's difficult to tell whether it's Danish or Norwegian (bokmål) in written form.
@@rcic3706 ah I see! yes they sort of write the same but sound different!
@@HaakonGaarder Yes, I really struggle to follow Danish. Norwegian is not easy either, but much more rational and predictable.
for kurt cobain
I thought this was a Bush song when I first heard it.
God how? Bush is terrible
KC
tres bel hommage a kurt cobain
For Cobain...fu*k I hate this world.
me too. I can’t get over my anger towards it
Not as good as the original unmastered version. Try the other one & see for yourself.
can bairly hear the singer
thats the point of the whole song
@@cool3865 the point of this song is Kurt but ok
Recorded in one take, no editing.
@@shadykitty7493 You asked why and he gave you an answer. But then you tried to correct him, despite the fact you asked in the first place?
And his name is Michael Stipe. If you don't know that much, why are you listening to REM?
LOS PUTOS AMOS.
ruclips.net/video/tc06o1dKyY8/видео.htmlsi=_I2y3pdQMOqf0LgH
Not great footage unfortunately
Nice try...
Doing my hair. Sorry.
Vocals too quiet
Agreed - original version much better.
f sake
🖕 it's a no from me 🖕
trash trash trash
just gonna keep it real , the guitar sucks in this song , so much I cant listen.
❤