Everybody Hurts

A few years ago, when we were leaving Philadelphia to return to Lawrence, I did something that still hurts today: I gave away almost the entirety of my CD collection, which I'd spent decades building. There was a rational reason for this -- we had very limited room in the "cube" that was going on the moving truck, and had to make a lot of snap decisions about what had to go and what we'd keep. 

I've spent the last couple of years buying albums I'd already bought 15 or 20 years ago, that I've missed.

This week, I got a package in the mail from eBay: REM's "Automatic for the People." I'm listening to it now. It remains beautiful and dirgelike, in the best way. Event the peppier songs, like "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" can't dent the overall effect of the album, which puts me in an almost-meditative state.

The killer track on the album, though, is "Everybody Hurts" -- a universal anthem if ever there was one. The video is killer, too.

Back when we made mixtapes, my roommate put that song on a mix he made for a relative who was grieving -- not to strong a word, I think -- a lost relationship. Too on the nose? I don't know. I don't think so. Everybody does hurt at some point or another, and Michael Stipe and company acknowledge that, but they also don't wallow in it -- the end of the song features and triumphant orchestral swell, a reminder that (often, hopefully) better days are ahead.

But it's ok to sit with the pain a bit, too, consoled by the fact you're not the only one who has ever felt these feelings.