R.E.M. is an American rock band created in 1979 by Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry. Specialized in alternative rock, they became successful from 1987 with the title The One I Love but their popularity has rocketed in the 90’s with the albums Out of Time in 1991 and Automatic for the People in 1992. We chose to focus on the first one in which where the hit Losing My Religion is, which deals with the non-reciprocal love of the singer...
As surprising as it might be this song doesn’t speak about religion at all. In fact “losing my religion is an expression from the southern region of the US that means losing one’s temper, meaning as if things were going so bad you could lose your faith in God. The lead singer Stipe himself told the New York Times that the song was about romantic expression : “ it’s just a song about having a crush”. Indeed the whole song is about the singer being in love with someone who does not feel the same about him and throughout the lyrics , he is searching for hidden meaning and hopeful signs, but driving himself mad in the process. In other words he loses his religion over ... a girl .
“ I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you sing, I thought I heard you try but that was just a dream”.
If you’ve loved this song, we recommend you the group “ The Police ” which has released a song quite similar : Every Breath You Take, in 1983.