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R.E.M. — Find The River
Album: Automatic for the People
Avg rating:
7.9

Your rating:
Total ratings: 3575









Released: 1992
Length: 3:44
Plays (last 30 days): 0
Hey now, little speedyhead
The read on the speedmeter says
You have to go to task in the city

Where people drown and people serve
Don't be shy, your just deserve
Is only just light years to go

Me, my thoughts are flower strewn
Ocean storm, bayberry moon
I have got to leave to find my way

Watch the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes
Nothing is going my way

The ocean is the river's goal
A need to leave the water knows
We're closer now than light years to go

I have got to find the river
Bergamot and vetiver
Run through my head and fall away

Leave the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes
Nothing is going my way

There's no one left to take the lead
But I tell you and you can see
We're closer now than light years to go

Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
Fall into the ocean

The river to the ocean goes
A fortune for the undertow
None of this is going my way

There is nothing left to throw
Of Ginger, lemon, indigo
Coriander stem and rose of hay

Strength and courage overrides
The privileged and weary eyes
Of river poet search naiveté

Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
All of this is coming your way
Comments (398)add comment
Every song on this album is sublime. The best album of the 1990s.
My personal favorite by REM. Best 2024 wishes from the Netherlands to everyone. 
The older I get and the older this song gets the more I enjoy it.
Peak REM
This remains a very powerful album for me. Thanks RP! 
Find the skip button
the BG vocal harmony... sweet
I'm not to say this aged well but it sounds better in the 21st century  than I look in the 21st century.
30 years old. Hard to believe.
So marvelous. 
Mike Mills' background vocals and the piano make this song.
 DoctorHooey wrote:


there's no key change, and the piano is very light. To me the power from this song comes from:
- the lonely accordion
- Stipe's melancholy approach and the super reflective, melancholy lyrics accepting inevitability of death 
- wistful piano accompaniment, which rises and falls in the right spots to magnify the lyrics

but what really pushes it over the cliff is Mike Mills' INCREDIBLE backup vocals. They absolutely make the song

That accordion part is just enough.  To me, the accordion at times can be overwhelming.  One of my favorite REM pieces.
Easily one of the most beautiful and melancholy songs ever made! How I can listen to it a milion times and simply can’t get bored with it! Melancholy music is so wonderful! One of their best!
One of the most moving of REM's songs and tonight it is really hitting me. Just the thing...
Ha! Find The River straight into Zeppelin's Over The Hills. RP gold!!

I've heard this song so many times, but until recently I'd never 'heard' it. Felt it, I mean. I know some of the lyrics are a bit nonsensical, but they work. Life, death, loss - a beautiful tribute to his grandmother.
c.

Dar's the one I love the most, but Stipe's not far behind.

I had an R.E.M. girl just after college.  I fell in love with her and the band she really got me into.  I still love R.E.M and I still love her for this.
Their early stuff was spectacular, and they had some resurgences in their later years I liked, but this was probably R.E.M. at their best!
a surprisingly sweet, simple song. bergamot and vetiver took a long time to figure out (I finally had to look at the lyrics...)
one of their best
one of REM's best songs
RP makes play too much that song
Had to take this from an 8 to a 9. Truly excellent.
Melancholy musical perfection . The whole album just takes one to vivid painted landscapes and soft peace !
I remember reading quotes from Stype saying that
at the time of writing "Automatic" he was greatly affected  by the loss of his grandmother he was very close to!
As a life long Led Zeppelin fan I find it pleasing to know that John Paul Jones was very involved in most of the song arrangements!
If one did not think REM genius after the early  Eponyms release this album surely convinced!
Stand still and I just let it flow through me...and finally I realize everything is going my way. I love this song.
Almost an unbearable amount of beauty in this song. Enough to want to immediately hear it... again. 
 DoctorHooey wrote:


there's no key change, and the piano is very light. To me the power from this song comes from:
- the lonely accordion
- Stipe's melancholy approach and the super reflective, melancholy lyrics accepting inevitability of death 
- wistful piano accompaniment, which rises and falls in the right spots to magnify the lyrics

but what really pushes it over the cliff is Mike Mills' INCREDIBLE backup vocals. They absolutely make the song
 

Look after the king of R n R please
One of three or four REM songs that I like.
Great ambience, pushy tact, sweeping tones, built on a canvas of threaded honey, with highlights of country twangs and melancholy lilt, complaining ears and wafts of ego - mellowed ...
 MrsTom wrote:
Not many songs give me shivers but this is one of them. Can someone with musical training tell me what happens here?  Is it the piano arpeggio?  The key change?
 

there's no key change, and the piano is very light. To me the power from this song comes from:
- the lonely accordion
- Stipe's melancholy approach and the super reflective, melancholy lyrics accepting inevitability of death 
- wistful piano accompaniment, which rises and falls in the right spots to magnify the lyrics

but what really pushes it over the cliff is Mike Mills' INCREDIBLE backup vocals. They absolutely make the song
Been a while since I've come here.  This song,,,,, this song has an amazing ability to rocket me back to 1993 , standing in a kitchen with two of my very best friends who were doing their  best to be the friends they still are.   Having just lost a son,  the fragility of still being in a state of grief , this song playing in the background at that moment,  still sticks with me.  It is such a heavy song that can have many meanings to whoever listens.    
 MrsTom wrote:
Not many songs give me shivers but this is one of them. Can someone with musical training tell me what happens here?  Is it the piano arpeggio?  The key change?
 

It uses a lot of minor chords, and chords with the 7th in them.
Michael Stipe has such a gift for melancholy lyrics and melody. 
Not many songs give me shivers but this is one of them. Can someone with musical training tell me what happens here?  Is it the piano arpeggio?  The key change?
beautiful
 jmkate wrote:
Love this..
 
Same here
Athens, GA
 Daveteauk wrote:
Less is More!
 
If "Less" was "More", it would be called "More".  But as you can plainly see, it isn't.
Not my favorite REM LP, but I love this song from it!
I don't care how highly rated this song is, it's underrated.  It should be recognized as the best song they ever put out, which is tough competition.
 jmkate wrote:
Love this..
 I hate this and ALL things R.E.M - one of the most overrated bands on Earth IMO. And Bill plays WAAAAY too much of it. Less is More!

Love this..
Whew! Had not heard that before. Stopped my work in its tracks. Didn't know whether to cry from sadness or cry from joy. Eyes stayed dry, but the ears had an orgasm, what a beautiful piece of music.
Sigh.
Absolutely flawless piece of early-90s pop writing! REM were superb when they were on it. the world could do with another REM right about now, if only a label would give a band the chance.....
 Grayson wrote:
Well Mr. B., we have crossed the Rubicon now. No going back. I gave into easy temptations here where you list all lyrics. (Why? A discussion for another time.) And for the first time ever in, what, going on the 40 years of R.E.M. beauty raining down on our sweet & lovely heads, I looked at the lyrics on an R.E.M. song. I mean, I knew about the bergamot thing and the herbs and rose oils and all that stuff. But all these years I thought "Of river poet search naivete" was "Blahblahblah mumble search my evil ways." Gonna need to do some of that modern "processing" now. Not sure I wanted to do that today. At all. Had other plans. 
 
Similar reaction on this end reading the Wiki page that pops up with the song and I did not know that REM used to be known as:

Hornets Attack Victor Mature
Bingo Hand Job (which means some extra 'winners' in the hall, eh?)
It Crawled from the South, Twisted Kites

yeah....I guess R.E.M. works better....though Bingo Hand Job sounds fun, er, good, too
Great sound!
Really Excellent Music 
I was 3 years old when I first heard this album - no wonder it's so deeply rooted in my soul
Well Mr. B., we have crossed the Rubicon now. No going back. I gave into easy temptations here where you list all lyrics. (Why? A discussion for another time.) And for the first time ever in, what, going on the 40 years of R.E.M. beauty raining down on our sweet & lovely heads, I looked at the lyrics on an R.E.M. song. I mean, I knew about the bergamot thing and the herbs and rose oils and all that stuff. But all these years I thought "Of river poet search naivete" was "Blahblahblah mumble search my evil ways." Gonna need to do some of that modern "processing" now. Not sure I wanted to do that today. At all. Had other plans. 
November Songs...
pure poetry...
This, and "Me In Honey" are two of a number of my favorites from R.E.M. I seldom tire of listening to it.
This song is the 80's and 90's to me....and I miss them dearly.
Yes indeed, I like beautiful decanters meself, preferably full.
 deepwoodskev wrote:
I love Mike Mills' background vocals on this.

 
Yes - he is singing a descant - it is beautiful.
I love Mike Mills' background vocals on this.
 Cyclehawk wrote:
Sends me back to the early 90s, in a good way.

 
I remember listening to this one in afternoon chemistry lab for quantitative analysis.
Clearly not as strong as stuff from the early albums, but ok
 Skydog wrote:
Ladies and Gentlemen may I present to you the Eagles of alt-rock, R.E.M.!!!!!

 
The Eagles never reached this level of superb song writing.
Sends me back to the early 90s, in a good way.
Ladies and Gentlemen may I present to you the Eagles of alt-rock, R.E.M.!!!!!
So often this has struck me with a melancholy nostalgia; pangs of regret, bewilderment, loss, betrayal...
Buddha Said, "Life is suffering, and the concept of Happiness is an illusion." As for myself, I found I need more hope, less cynicism.
Finding the River is a noble, worthwhile quest, and seems to be what Life is all about...
THIS IS A WONDERFUL SONG from a fabulous collection of stunning brilliance. Bravo~!
I rediscovered this album in 2014. Very moving song lyrics. Sweetness Follows gets me choked up every time.

 ick wrote:


I don't think it's strange at all.  My life has a soundtrack made up of records that are like this one is to you.

 

Agreed. Music is the ultimate time capsule.


Beautiful song.  Not quite sure why this works so well for me. 

But I know it does.  And that's enough, for now.

Probably. in part nostalgia.  More than just that.  

 
              Server-side redirect ......         {#Angel}         
Awesome, how this reinforces ties to the very spot I am now, once again, as always, re-booting, recharging here for another launch...
 daveesh wrote:
any song from this album has the ability to put me right back at a very specific time and place in my life. can't escape it. not that i want to. strange.

 
I don't think it's strange at all.  My life has a soundtrack made up of records that are like this one is to you.
 Ginetta wrote:
Somehow I can't stand REM, there is always kind  a 'lamento' in his songs - but this one is not that bad.
 
Hi Ginetta,  just wanted to say I once lived in your beautiful city, many years ago.  And as far as this song goes, I love it.
Morphine-In Spite of Me
José González-Teardrop
REM-Find the River

Great set. The González/R.E.M. segue was perfect.
This song compares favorably to so many other songs with a Nine+ rating. The ratings given to so many REM songs convinces me that REM is hugely underrated;and that many of the listeners of RP have a tone deaf slavish devotion to to music made before 1980 or so-excepting those bands such as U2 who were (are) just another 60s to70s band disguised in 80s to the present "Alternative" guises.
 
Somehow I can't stand REM, there is always kind  a 'lamento' in his songs - but this one is not that bad.
any song from this album has the ability to put me right back at a very specific time and place in my life. can't escape it. not that i want to. strange.
So good.  Thanks RP!
I sure am enjoying this morning's vibe more than yesterday's.  {#Biggrin}
I always feel Stipe is saying ALL of this is going my way...this song is uplifting...
My favourite REM song. Great to hear it again after so many years.
I haven't heard this tune in a while; good song.
wow!  first time I've 'heard' this song.  It's lovely.  Similar in tone to 'fall on me'.  Suits my mood and time in life, good to hear a fresh old tune, if you know what I mean.
 big stud Romeo Tuma wrote:

Culture
by Robert Pinsky

Bewildered, bewildering primate. Absinthe. Circumcision. Couplets.
Grudges, beliefs. The war of my childhood, Europe tearing at itself.

Scarification. Conceptual art. Classic celebrated scholarly papers
On the Trobriand Islanders, more fiction or poetry than science.

Absorbed or transmitted always invisibly now invisibly in the air
From a digital Cloud. Visible and invisible in the funny papers.

Images, music. In the comic-strip family the snob Maggie's hair
Rose up curly as the treble clef that embraces the musical G.

Her pugnosed husband Jiggs, stocky as the bass clef, hair in two red
Tufts near his ears over the wing collar Maggie made him wear.

He wanted to sneak out of their mansion to "corned beef and cabbage"
At Dinty's—how could a mystified child guess it was code for beer?

In Africa I drank sweet palm wine ladled from a red vinyl bucket.
The animist Sangomo who spoke with Ancestors was also a Christian.

In the tune, I was drinking beer in a cabaret, Oh was I having fun! But
Pistol-Packin' Mama caught me there—and now I'm on the run.

The Web says the song was a hit by Al Dexter the year I was born.
Bewildered, mystified, I recognized it. Ginsberg recognized Time.

Different explanations of Hutu and Tutsi, are they peoples or races
Or tribes or constructions out of the thin air of Rwandan history?

Music of bold stereotypes: Irish sweepstakes Jiggs, "nouveau riche."
Hillbilly stereotype in a cabaret, the forbidding Mamas, objects of fear.

Charlie Chan, Life with Luigi, The Goldbergs, Amos'n'Andy. Japanese
Detective Mr. Moto played by the Jew Peter Lorre, who fled the Nazis.

Der Stürmer, lynchings, rapes, internment camps. Eliot's vicious book
Of lectures on Culture, delivered in Virginia, that he chose to suppress.

Virginia, Florida. The Dakotas. California, word with no known origin.
A young singer unconsciously voicing the sound of Auto-Tune software.

After Pearl Harbor a movie sidekick changed overnight from Japanese
To Filipino. Arts. Quotas, migrations, genocides. Near Beer. Beauty.

Maggie and Jiggs had a beautiful daughter, Nora. Virginal. The strip
Was beautifully drawn, the artist George McManus inspired he said by Art

Nouveau—and here he is photographed in costume as Jiggs, it was all a
Self-portrait: Oh lay that pistol down, Babe, a personal craving to survive.

 

 
Time flies when we're having fun...  love this song...

Money Time
by Craig Morgan Teicher

Supposedly, time is money:
money will buy you time
assuming you have money

to spend, as well as time
to wait while your money
grows.  However, time

spent waiting can be like money
misspent—it's often time
wasted, even if money

is made, a kind of time
not worth spending, so money
isn't necessarily time.

Maybe time is money
if you make with your time
something else that makes money,

though most of the time
it's not your money
you've made with your time.

And money isn't even money,
necessarily, in a time
like this, when money

loses value and time
is misspent losing money.
And time isn't even time

necessarily, if it's lost money
on which you're wasting time,
nor is money really money

if it's wasted on wasted time.
Still, sometimes, time is money,
but only if you have money and time.
 

absolutely beautiful. so many great memories...
{#Hearteyes}
One of my life soundtrack songs (we could all make a list, no?); it never fails to make me smile.
Perhaps my absolute favorite REM song, just beautiful...
{#Hearteyes} ...... this is "outstanding"
The only other times I've heard this song were when listening to the album and I never thought much of it.  Sounds much better taken out of that context.
Great song on a great album by a great band.
Just...beautiful.
Morphine-In Spite of Me
Jose Gonzalez-Teardrop
Thievery Corporation- -Beloved
REM-Find the River

now that's a great set. And now we drop off a bit with Mellencamp's "I Saw you first" 
This is one of those songs that can really send the chills and raise the goosebumps. Well I recall the 1st few times of hearing the masterpiece it bookended, playing it again and again, like Dark Side of the Moon or something. River run, from Eve and Adam's...
 Euskadita wrote:

No debate

 

Case closed.  {#Yes}
I absolutely love this song and this album. Thanks! And the pictures that go with it are amazing.

Everybody in my church loves this song...
 
 rdo wrote:
Miss you, Michael et al..  REM is the best US band.  There is no debate about this fact.
 
No debate

marvelous song...  love it...
 
 coloradojohn wrote:
EVERY TIME, this sonic poetic masterpiece can put me doing a j-break with friends and CU classmates at a yard party, farewell for me before I went off to Ishikawa for a seven year stretch, in a very green and breeze-kissed space down by Boulder Creek, in the chill sofa seats of the cherry old '61 Impala, and my how it even though that was long ago...with many things having gone by in The River since...the Chevy, the marriage, and...well, that's just the way The River of Life goes...
Heartbreaking and yet uplifting at the same time, kinda like Neil Young can do, and did, just one song ago, and God I wish the flow of this set can just keep drifting along in its current eddies...
All of this is coming your way...
 
Poetic. Unusual for Cherry Creek. Lived in Glendale in the Eighties. Worked at Colorado & I-25. Lived in Lakewood and worked in Cherry Creek again 10 yrs ago. The Riv is no more. Rick's cafe, no more. How terrible.....but the Bull & Bush survives!
Miss you, Michael et al..  REM is the best US band.  There is no debate about this fact.
 gandalfbmg wrote:
THIS is the song I want played at my funeral.

Also, I think the album is the best album released during my lifetime; Perfect through and through...
 
Agree. See my comment above/below.
If there's a more achingly beautiful song I can't think of it right now.
THIS is the song I want played at my funeral.

Also, I think the album is the best album released during my lifetime; Perfect through and through...
{#Sorry}  Like most bands, REM did not evolve, they devolved.  This is pretty damn good though.
Easily a 10. What a way to finish a great album!
 coloradojohn wrote:
EVERY TIME, this sonic poetic masterpiece can put me doing a j-break with friends and CU classmates at a yard party, farewell for me before I went off to Ishikawa for a seven year stretch, in a very green and breeze-kissed space down by Boulder Creek, in the chill sofa seats of the cherry old '61 Impala, and my how it even though that was long ago...with many things having gone by in The River since...the Chevy, the marriage, and...well, that's just the way The River of Life goes...
Heartbreaking and yet uplifting at the same time, kinda like Neil Young can do, and did, just one song ago, and God I wish the flow of this set can just keep drifting along in its current eddies...
All of this is coming your way...
 
well said(like always)John! 


EVERY TIME, this sonic poetic masterpiece can put me doing a j-break with friends and CU classmates at a yard party, farewell for me before I went off to Ishikawa for a seven year stretch, in a very green and breeze-kissed space down by Boulder Creek, in the chill sofa seats of the cherry old '61 Impala, and my how it even though that was long ago...with many things having gone by in The River since...the Chevy, the marriage, and...well, that's just the way The River of Life goes...
Heartbreaking and yet uplifting at the same time, kinda like Neil Young can do, and did, just one song ago, and God I wish the flow of this set can just keep drifting along in its current eddies...
All of this is coming your way...

One of the few REM songs that doesn't make me want to drive an ice pick through my eardrums.
This is NOT the REM I like- give me early-mid 80's!!
R.E.M - Always one of my favs! Was sorry to see them hang it up, but they left some great music for us all to enjoy!{#Clap}
 pfnepschnee wrote:
The worst REM song I've ever heard.
 
I think that it's safe to bet that all I have to do in order to find a worse REM song is simply pick one randomly. Yes, this song is THAT great.

A truly great song is measured in time and number of listenings. After hundreds of times of hearing this song, I still feel its greatness. Not many songs are like that.

 scrubbrush wrote:
I like this song because I like Rocky Mountain High by John Denver (when i'm in a singer-songwriters of the 70's kinda mood, that is). The melody is sooo similar, i can't help hearing it
 
It is reminiscent in the chorus (which seems like a pretty standard progression), but not really the rest of the tune.  The verse parts of this song sound like they hang around in D and Dminor, unlike Mr. Denver's song.

Any album after Document is tripe.  That's just my opinion.  The R.E.M. I admired cannot be heard after that.
Oh how gorgeous and bittersweet. Haven't heard this since its release. Thanks for pulling it today!
 Sloggydog wrote:
Beautiful.  As an avid REM fan I was at the shops awaiting the release of this every day.  I got it and took it home.  I played it and I was so disappointed.  Not at all what I expected.  I shelved it.  Then drive was released and I went that's a bloody cool song.  I got the CD out and played it.  I have never been able to figure out what was wrong with me on the first listen because it grew on me like no music I had ever owned.  Great album and either this, nightswimming or try not to breathe would be my favourite tracks.
 
I had a much similar experience.  I bought it, thought it was ok, than for some reason picked it back up for a long walk.  It was one of those brisk autumn days in the hills of South East Ohio, the leaves were just starting to turn and it was pretty windy.  I was in the midst of a teenage streak of depression and felt lost all the time. 

One afternoon, I grabbed my little portable cd player, the first cd I saw, and left the house.  With nothing to distract me beside the majesty of a country autumn, I was able to really listen to this cd.  Not every song struck a cord, but I was able to forget my troubles completely. 

In a stroke of irony, I started walking along the edge of the river just as Nightswimming came on.  After that, Find the River... 

I returned to the house with a new love for the album and a couple of dead batteries. 

Beautiful.  As an avid REM fan I was at the shops awaiting the release of this every day.  I got it and took it home.  I played it and I was so disappointed.  Not at all what I expected.  I shelved it.  Then drive was released and I went that's a bloody cool song.  I got the CD out and played it.  I have never been able to figure out what was wrong with me on the first listen because it grew on me like no music I had ever owned.  Great album and either this, nightswimming or try not to breathe would be my favourite tracks.
 johnjconn wrote:
A great REM song. A great REM cd

My daughter was born in 1990 too and this cd brings back fantastic memories of my now college sophomore.
 
I just listened to this cd again. The last 3 songs (which includes this one) are amazing.


 pfnepschnee wrote:
The worst REM song I've ever heard.
 

Oh God no, you must've stopped listening to them after this album! It was all downhill from there!{#Stop}
 scrubbrush wrote:
I like this song because I like Rocky Mountain High by John Denver (when i'm in a singer-songwriters of the 70's kinda mood, that is). The melody is sooo similar, i can't help hearing it
 

You know you're right! This song is ok I guess.