R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck wrote the main riff and chorus to the song on a mandolin while watching television one day. Buck had just bought the instrument and was attempting to learn how to play it, recording the music as he practiced. Buck said that "when I listened back to it the next day, there was a bunch of stuff that was really just me learning how to play mandolin, and then there's what became 'Losing My Religion', and then a whole bunch more of me learning to play the mandolin."[7]
Recording of the song started in September 1990 at Bearsville Studio A in Woodstock, New York.[7] The song was arranged in the studio with mandolin, electric bass, and drums.[8] Bassist Mike Mills came up with a bassline inspired by the work of Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie; by his own admission he could not come up with one for the song that was not derivative.[7] Buck said the arrangement of the song "had a hollow feel to it. There's absolutely no midrange on it, just low end and high end, because Mike usually stayed pretty low on the bass." The band decided to have touring guitarist Peter Holsapple play acoustic guitar on the recording. Buck reflected, "It was really cool: Peter and I would be in our little booth, sweating away, and Bill and Mike would be out there in the other room going at it. It just had a really magical feel."[8] Singer Michael Stipe's vocals were recorded in a single take.[9] Orchestral strings, arranged by Mark Bingham, were added to the song by members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Soundscape Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, in October 1990.[10]
Composition and lyrics
"Losing My Religion" is based on Peter Buck's mandolin-playing. Buck said, "The verses are the kinds of things R.E.M. uses a lot, going from one minor to another, kind [of] like those 'Driver 8' chords. You can't really say anything bad about E minor, A minor, D, and G – I mean, they're just good chords." Buck noted that "Losing My Religion" was "probably the most typical R.E.M.-sounding song on the record. We are trying to get away from those kind of songs, but like I said before, those are some good chords."[8] Orchestral strings play through parts of the song. The song is in natural minor.[11]
Stipe has repeatedly stated that the song's lyrics are not about religion. The phrase "losing my religion" is an expression from the southern region of the United States that means "losing one's temper or civility" or "feeling frustrated and desperate."[12] Stipe told The New York Times the song was about romantic expression.[13] He told Q that "Losing My Religion" is also about "someone who pines for someone else. It's unrequited love, what have you."[14] Stipe compared the song's theme to "Every Breath You Take" (1983) by The Police, saying, "It's just a classic obsession pop song. I've always felt the best kinds of songs are the ones where anybody can listen to it, put themselves in it and say, 'Yeah, that's me.'"[15]
Release and performance
Peter Buck playing Losing My Religion with his mandolin.
"Losing My Religion" was released on February 19, 1991, in the United States as the lead single from R.E.M.'s forthcoming album Out of Time.[15] The band's record label, Warner Bros., was wary about the group's choice of the song as the album's first single. Steven Baker, who was vice president of product management at Warner Bros. at the time, said there were "long, drawn-out discussions" about releasing such an "unconventional track" as the single until the label agreed. While R.E.M. declined to tour to promote Out of Time, the band visited radio stations, gave numerous press interviews, and made appearances on MTV to promote the record. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. worked to establish the single at campus, modern rock, and album-oriented rock radio stations before promoting it to American Top 40 stations, where it became a success. "The record crosses the boundaries of being just an alternative record", one Top 40 radio station program director said; he admitted that "Losing My Religion" was "a hard record to program; you can't play L.L. Cool J behind it. But it's a real pop record—you can dance to it."[16]
"Losing My Religion" became R.E.M.'s biggest hit in the U.S., peaking at No. 4 on the BillboardHot 100.[17] The single stayed on the chart for 21 weeks.[18] It topped both the BillboardAlbum Rock Tracks and Modern Rock Tracks charts, for three and eight weeks respectively, also personal bests for the band on both charts. It charted at number 19 on the UK Singles Chart, and peaked at No. 16 and No. 11 in Canada and Australia, respectively.[17] It was #1 in the Netherlands, the first time the band had topped a national chart. Mills said years later, "Without 'Losing My Religion', Out of Time would have sold two or three million [copies], instead of the ten [million copies] or so it did. But the phenomenon that is a worldwide hit is an odd thing to behold. Basically that record was a hit in almost every civilised country in the world."[9] The success of "Losing My Religion" and Out of Time broadened R.E.M.'s audience beyond its original college radio fanbase. When asked at the time if he was worried that the song's success might alienate older fans, Buck told Rolling Stone, "The people that changed their minds because of 'Losing My Religion' can just kiss my ass."[19]
"We were once in Paraguay, well into the jungle," Mills told Vulture in 2023. "We were going to help sign over 500,000 acres to the Indigenous Aché people of northern Paraguay. We were still getting reception from the local radio station and 'Losing My Religion' came on. That was pretty surprising. That's when we knew we had a worldwide hit."[20]
Critical reception
Caren Myers from Melody Maker named the song Single of the Week, adding, "'Losing My Religion' occupies a smaller, more intimate space, delicately picking a path with mandolins and acoustic guitars, soothed by the mournful sweep of a string section. Deceptive echoes of "World Leader Pretend" dissolve on second listen as the song wraps itself around the impossibility of communication with glancing but painful accuracy. Stipe's writing is getting sparser and more intense, riddled with oblique insights but unwilling to point out where. This is R.E.M. at their most tender and unsettling, Stipe's careworn voice filled with inexplicable sadness, but as warm and familiar as ever."[21] A reviewer from Music & Media wrote, "Hearing such a beautiful song with a striking mandolin arrangement, provides an ample religious substitute."[22] Terry Staunton from NME found that it "is likely to be read as self-reflection on R.E.M.'s position in the worldwide musical scheme of things, doubt and discomfort at the prospect of unwanted disciples".[23] Parry Gettelman from Orlando Sentinel remarked that here, the band returns to its "trademark jangle", "but Buck employs a mandolin instead of a Rickenbacker. Stipe touches again on what seems to be ambivalence about his role as a pop star, and about the need to communicate with an audience."[24]David Fricke from Rolling Stone felt that "there is melancholy in the air: in the doleful strings and teardrop mandolin of "Losing My Religion".[25]Celia Farber from Spin praised it as "a gorgeous, gorgeous song", adding, "When Stipe sings "That's me in the corner/That's me in the spotlight losing my religion", I actually get a hot/cold flash and have to play the song about 30 more times. Right away."[26]
The accompanying music video for "Losing My Religion" was directed by Tarsem Singh. As opposed to previous R.E.M. videos, Michael Stipe agreed to lip sync the lyrics.[33] The video originated as a combination of ideas envisioned by Stipe and Singh. Stipe wanted the promo to be a straightforward performance video, akin to Sinéad O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U". Singh wanted to create a video in the style of a certain type of Indian filmmaking, where everything would be "melodramatic and very dreamlike", according to Stipe.[34] Singh has said the video is modeled after the Gabriel García Márquez short story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" in which an angel crashes into a town and the villagers have varied reactions to him.[35]
The video begins with a brief sequence inside a dark room where water drips from an open window. Recreating a scene from the Andrei Tarkovsky film The Sacrifice, Buck, Berry, and Mills run across the room while Stipe remains seated as a pitcher of milk drops from the windowsill and shatters; the song then begins. Director Singh also drew inspiration from the Italian painter Caravaggio and the video is laden with religious imagery such as Saint Sebastian, the Biblical episode of the Incredulity of Thomas and Hindu deities, portrayed in a series of tableaux.[36] Actor Wade Dominguez (1966-1998), who played Emilio in Dangerous Minds (1995), appears in the music video.[37]
The music video hit one billion views on YouTube in September 2022, becoming the band's first video to do so.[39]
MTV performances
On November 10, 1991, R.E.M. performed "Losing My Religion" with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the tenth anniversary of MTV. It was recorded at the Madison Morgan Cultural Centre in Madison, Georgia, about twenty miles south of Athens.[40]
They also performed the song earlier in the year for MTV Unplugged, and again in 2001.
Personnel
Personnel adapted from Out of Time liner notes,[41] except where noted
^"Eurochart Hot 100 Singles"(PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 8, no. 33. August 17, 1991. p. 21. Archived(PDF) from the original on July 18, 2020. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
^"Top 10 Sales in Europe"(PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 8, no. 30. July 27, 1991. p. 20. Archived(PDF) from the original on July 13, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
^"Eurochart Hot 100 1991"(PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 8, no. 51–52. December 21, 1991. p. 21. Archived(PDF) from the original on December 31, 2020. Retrieved January 17, 2020 – via World Radio History.
