Chords for R.E.M. - Losing My Religion | Het verhaal achter het nummer | Top 2000 a gogo

[D] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ [Am] The term losing my religion is not actually the term.
The term is lost [F] my religion.
And it's an old southern term that [Dm] means that something has [Am] challenged your faith
to such a degree that [F] you might lose your religion.
What the song is about has [B] nothing to do with religion, [Am] but it's an [G] unrequited love song.
[A] Oh, [G] _ _ [Am] _ _ it's bigger, _
_ [Em] _ it's bigger than you, than you [Am] are not me.
The links that [Em] I will go to.
I love the idea of writing a song about [Am] unrequited love,
about _ holding back and [Em] reaching forward and then pulling back again and reaching forward again.
[Am] And the thing that really for me is the most thrilling is that you don't ever [Em] really know
if the person that I'm reaching out for _ is [Am] aware of me, if they even know that I exist.
And so [Em] it's this really _ tearful, like heartfelt thing [Dm] that found its way into
one of the best pieces of [G] music that the band ever gave me.
I thought that I heard [F] you laughing.
_ [Dm] I thought that I heard [Am] you sing. _ _ _ _ _
[F] You think I thought I [Dm] saw [G] you [Am] try.
_ [G] _ _ I like losing [Am] my religion, I like the lyrics a lot.
And I just kind of like that feel, it's got [Em] that kind of mid [Eb]-70s California rock [Em] groove.
_ _ [G] Also I get to play mandolin [A] on it, so I kind of enjoy [Eb] playing mandolin a little bit more than playing guitar [D] nowadays.
_ [F] _ Peter wrote it on mandolin, [B] brought it into rehearsal [Am] one day and he showed us how it went.
And [Em] the beauty of Peter's [F] melody, I had to come up with something that anchored it and gave [Bm] it enough solid bottom
[Am] _ _ that had to have a little bit of melody in it but could not be too busy.
It had to be very simple and [Em] very low-end.
I [F] think [Dm] I thought I saw [G] you [Am] try.
_ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ [Am] It was always really hard for me to present a lyric and to present [Em] an idea for the first time,
so I would tend to kick everyone out of the studio.
[Dm] No one could be there. _ _
I remember [G] being very frustrated with the engineer _ because I [F] felt like he wasn't paying attention. _ _
[G] _ [Am] I'm not a mean person, but I get mean in those moments _ [F] _ because you have this [Dm] idea
[G] and you're [Am] as vulnerable as you've ever been [G] presenting this idea for the first time.
Every whisper _ _ [F] of every [E] waking hour
I'm choosing my confessions
[A] _ _ _
[N] Trying to keep an eye on you
I wanted to sing it in one take and the deliverance could not come across at all as fake or pop.
It had to just be heartfelt.
It had to come from here.
To achieve that in a live performance is no problem,
but to do it in the artificiality of a recording studio with an engineer who's a little sleepy
because they had too much barbecue for dinner or whatever it is, _ I was like this.
I remember very distinctly being really upset.
I also got really hot because I was all worked up, so [G] I took my clothes off.
Actually, I recorded the song almost naked.
I remember that.
And then when it was done, I walked out.
Consider _ [Am] this _ Consider this
[Em] You've dealt the century _ Consider [Am] _ this
_ The slip _
[Em] That brought me to my knees
There's also the [Am] video and the audacity of that video. _ _
The sheer, [Em] the _ widescreen aspect of that [Dm] video
compared to what else was being shown on MTV at the time
really [G] in large part due to Tarsem and his beautiful direction [F] and his ideas
and taking these four very disparate [Dm] worlds and slamming them [Am] together over the song.
And then [Dm] there's R.E..M. walking [F] around in a room _ [Dm] with spilt milk and with mandolins [Am] and me dancing like [Bb] Sinead O'Connor. _ Maybe I [Eb] wasn't me She had a song called Emperors in Clothes, and she's [Bb] doing this [Ebm] crazy, like, [B] this thing that she does. And I kind of took that, and I remembered David Byrne from years before _ _ just this riveting, insane movement _ that he had, [D] and I kind of combined them. That's me in the [Am] corner _ _ That's me in the [Em] spotlight It wasn't planned at all. _ [Am] Tarsem had me posing in the poses of Bollywood, so everything was very arch and I would [Em] look over my shoulder and sing a line, and it wasn't working _ [Am] at all. It was really stupid. And Tarsem went to the bathroom, [Em] and he threw up. [C] _ [A] And [Dm] he was gone for like 30 minutes, and I was like, where's Tarsem? [G] And they're like, he's throwing up in the bathroom. And I'm like, _ why is he throwing up in the [F] bathroom? _ And we sat down and had tea. And [Am] he said, this isn't working. And I said, I know. What do we do? And I said, [F] _ let me dance. Let me [Dm] just try to [G] dance. _ [Am] _ Let me try, let me do it my way. Let me see what [D] I can [Am] offer. [F] _ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ When the record company said it should [F] be the first single, which [Dm] by that they meant [C] the introductory [Am] lead-in single [G] to what they hoped would be the real hit off the record, we said that's [Am] a great idea. It makes no sense at all. _ It's five minutes long. It has no chorus, and the mandolin is the lead instrument. It's perfect for R.E..M. _ Because it flouts all the rules, which is what we like to do. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _