Here’s a detail about Michael Stipe I couldn’t jam into the article, mostly because I thought the sentiment would be distracting: when we spoke on the phone, my first question was directly about Yorke’s cultural position, and Stipe said, “Well, Thom has entered that rarefied class of songwriter—these are people like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and myself. The things he says now take on a different kind of significance.” This, I suppose, is completely true—but what a fucked-up thing to say about oneself! Were those the only three people he could think of?
