Goodbye, R.E.M.

I've had hours to consider what I'll say here, and it's still not clear in my head. I don't know how to begin to describe the emotions of hearing that my favorite band ever, one I've been with — and one that's been with me — for the majority of my life, has sent itself off into retirement.

I never saw it coming, and while I will concede that a good chunk of Wednesday was spent walking around in a stupor, I'll also say that the way R.E.M. exited the stage is entirely in keeping with what I've come to expect from them in three decades as a fan: dignified, understated, no odious farewell tour or media blitz. Just a simple statement on the band's website, and they're gone.

Whatever conflicts I'm having about what to say don't extend to the question of what to post. Of all the songs from 15 studio albums, eight compilations and two live albums, my favorite stands consistent. This one:

There's a story behind my love of "Find the River," and you're going to get that, too.

In 1993-94, I worked for a small newspaper in Kentucky, the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer. It was a good place to work (then), situated in a vibrant college town on the banks of the Ohio River. One day, I spent a late afternoon driving up the Kentucky side of the river to Hawesville, then crossing to Cannelton, Indiana, and coming back on the other side. It was one of those pitch-perfect fall days — a little chill in the air, sunny if slightly overcast, the road windswept with coppery leaves. My companion that day was R.E.M.'s "Automatic for the People," the album that probably represents the nexus of the band's widest appeal and highest art. When I got to "Find the River," I kept backing it up, hearing meaning in the words that I hadn't contemplated before.

I was 23 years old, and I had this sense, for the first time, that I was the man I would be, for better or worse. That I'd made some decisions and had defined myself in some irretrievable way, and somehow, in my mind that day, those notions hardwired themselves to Michael Stipe's words:

The river to the ocean goes

A fortune for the undertow

None of this is going my way …

In Rockport, Indiana, not far from home, I pulled over at a secluded spot and I wept. For what? I don't know, not even today. Something powerful. Something beautiful. Something inside me that was drawn out by this band that I loved so much.

(Now, of course, I look back and see an emotionally dramatic 23-year-old. Enough has happened in the intervening years to teach me that nothing is irretrievable, that there are not only second acts in life but third and fourth acts. That's what I know now. What I knew then was all I could deal with then.)

A lot of the coverage of the band's retirement has focused on just how out of favor they are now with the musical mainstream, and while that's an unavoidable part of the story, it means nothing to me. From "Murmur" in 1983 to "Collapse Into Now" in 2011, a new R.E.M. album was an event-with-a-capital-E for me. Just as I'm willing to follow a favorite author wherever he wants to take me, I've always been eager to see what new horizon R.E.M. leads me to. Some ("Lifes Rich Pageant") appealed to me more than others ("Around the Sun"), but I was always packed for the journey. As I've considered my sadness at this news, that's certainly been one of the biggest factors: No more new R.E.M. to look forward to, ever. The other biggie: Perhaps the best part of being a fan of the band was the sense that together, the four of them (and, after Bill Berry left in 1997, the three of them) were so much more as a unit than they ever were apart from that. Perhaps that's unfair. Perhaps they'll go on to great heights in their own directions. I'd love to be wrong about this. And, really, as long as they're happy, that's the most important thing. R.E.M. never lost their dignity, and I trust they knew when it was time.

But, see, I think the guys also understood the greater-than-the-sum-of-their-parts thing. I think that's why they had the foresight, when they were starting out, to say that all songs would be credited to Berry Buck Mills Stipe, regardless of individual contributions on any given tune. They knew they'd have to stand together. And they did, for 31 years.

I will miss them.