I love the way these guys -- all four are credited as composers of this track -- plant us right smack in the middle of their seedy, Southern short story with minute, literary details: "Lookin' at your watch a third time/Waiting at the station for the bus" and "Goin' where nobody says hello/They don't talk to anybody they don't know".
I do not, however, love their protagonist, who confesses that, "At night I drink myself to sleep/And pretend I don't care that you're not here with me," never once imagining that his problem drinking might be the reason his special friend went to Rockville in the first place.
Like all addicts, he's also addicted to his own personal drama: "But somethin' better happen soon/Or it's gonna be too late to bring me back".
Oh, cue the violins, you emo squirt.
They were young when they wrote this, R.E.M. How else to explain the presentation of naked, emotional blackmail as a romantic gesture?
Here's R.E.M., in a bid for your sympathy with "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville".
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