The Wish To Become A Nightingale

    

     If you want me to describe how I feel about the songs R.E.M.(Rapid Eye Movement) composed, I will tell you it's like you are drinking a cup of ground coffee which has poured some milk inside a moment ago. Why do I need to put this kind of description? Because the ground coffee is like the traditional element, it seems that a coffee bean is perfectly made, sharpened or even undergone a period of washing, becoming much smaller for making a cup of drink. Then pouring some milk to "fresh" this hot coffee means it can contain a new element and even combine both of them. Finally, it becomes a cup of good fragrance coffee which lights up your extraordinary exploration. And its amazement is that their music somehow presents the old-fashioned tune and rhythm. Yet its lyrics imply the flaw in this modern society. Seen in this light, there is one song from their new album Collapse Into Now, called "Uberlin," which shows this kind of style for it.

      "UBerlin" reveals a feeling of releasing imagination for people in this world who are under the constraint and unconsciously suffer from the fixed pattern in their lives. This song lyrics open up a routine of the day. That is, everybody somehow follows the same habits of theirs. As lyrics show /take your pills/ make your breakfast/ comb your hair and off to work./ These three lines present the daily routine as ours in the normal working day. And here it also added /Crash land. No illusions. No collision. No intrusion/ My imagination runs away./ Here it has shown very obvious that the work or the things people do in the day time might be dull, inactive, and out of enthusiasm for all. Most people are blind to interact with the surroundings that they walk to pass by  and even lack imagination for how to interact with them. So the speaker would like to choose night time as his release time. The night time, which everybody are off the work and go home for the rest. However it brings the speaker a free time to work on his fantasy to enjoy the moment for interaction:

/I am flying on a star into a meteor tonight

I am flying on a star, star, star.../

The lyrics show that he really knows what he is doing as the night time lets him feel different and nice. He got a firm and confidence for what he really possesses. Here the tune also change a bit by mental sound and somehow a little element of humanity. Also, the tune seems a little sad, lonely and even pity that there is only the speaker tastes this kind of condition, and others can hardly see him. The contrast of this part catches my eyes and ears in particular. Every time I 

listen to this part, I'm charmed into its melody and its genuine confession of the speaker.

/I know, I know, I know what I am chasing

I know, I know, I know, that this is changing me/

     In addition, the speaker still give it a shot by asking others to be like him even though this "crash land" has been crashed at present. But it appears no one is willing to talk to him since most people consider he's kind of a weird guy and perhaps a freak creeping on the street back and forth, according to my understanding from the MV. 

/Hey man, tell me something?

Are you off to somewhere?

Do you want to go with me tonight?/ 

     According to Mike Mills, he denotes that this song is about the character who "is in trouble but doing his best to get through it. He's gonna make it. But it wasn't easy." Still, it occurs to me a poem composed by John Keats, 'Ode to the Nightingale,' I don't know why I've thought about this poem. Perhaps both of them show the relation of loneliness quite close. Nightingale in Keats' poem symbolizes a media for reaching a hidden place where he releases the burden from the society, composing the poetry by flying through the sky beyond this world. Besides, there is an interesting discover found by me. It is the title of the song, UBerlin, the "U" plus "Berlin." Through checking the information on-line, I finally know that U means "over," "beyond." So the meaning is "beyond the Berlin," which implies there is more above the Berlin, and that element may be inclined to the imagination, creativity or interpersonal interaction. It somehow suits the condition for Keats' poem. Here the lines present:

/Away! away! for I will fly to thee, 

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,/

(Ode to A Nightingale- John Keats)

    But the difference might be the attitude for both of them since Keats presents a very melancholy tone between the lines. However, "UBerlin" somehow reveals a more positive attitude for what the character pursues with strong consciousnss. By understanding the notion of the function of Nightingalem, I suppose the character also wishes he could become a nightingale for getting rid of the fixed pattern of this world, trying to build the positiveness of his attitude toward seeing this collapsed phenomenon among poeple.
 
     Well, "UBerlin" makes me thrill while I was listening to it. Whether its tune or melody encourages me to ponder why this society becomes more colder and full of numbness. And the nightingale will never vanish in our mind by the time we live in this kind of condition, this world of capitalism.
 

R.E.M.- UBerlin

 

 

Picture source 1: http://big5.cri.cn/gate/big5/gb.cri.cn/11344/2006/06/08/361@1080147_2.htm

Picture source 2: http://www.englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odetoanightingale.html