I’ve been listening to a heap of R.E.M. since The End of The Great Love (a.k.a. the breakup of my 19-year relationship—NOT an album title you didn’t know about). I don’t know why Michael Stipe is so comforting, but he is and has been for many people. I wish he’d release another album, one for the truly heartbroken, where words and melodies could heal all the hurts of the past. But alas, that’s a tall order, and one might argue that the band released—over umpteen albums—a cannon that included many tunes which would qualify as filling the aforementioned desire.
The title of this blog comes from one R.E.M. track, “E-Bow the Letter” from New Adventures in Hi-Fi, mid-career for the band, just before they signed “its then record-breaking five-album contract with Warner Bros. Records.” According to Wikipedia, the song became the lowest charting lead single for the band, reaching only number 49 on the Billboard music charts. Americans didn’t love it, but it did well in Canada and the U.K. For many of us moody chicks, what makes E-bow ultimate gold is the little bit where Patti Smith comes in. Because Patti, she’s seen some things. While Michael exudes sensitivity and the pain of growing up gay in the conservative south, Patti’s voice is whiskey and cigarettes, and beautiful arsty men converging with and then injuring her poet soul, causing her to grow a layer of protective fur and rise up like a she-wolf, howling at an August moon.
The song has always raised critical questions. What is an e-bow? Again, Wikipedia to the rescue (thank you Wiki volunteers!): “The song’s title refers to the EBow, an electromagnetic field-generating device that induces sustained vibration in an electric guitar string (creating a violin-like effect), and to a “letter never sent” by Michael Stipe.” Still a bit confusing, but OK!
Why is Michael Stipe “dreaming of Maria Callas, whoever she is”— that is the question we need to answer here, to tie this thread together. Maria was a Greek-American opera singer. And a great beauty with a big fucking honker. This is important to me. We are too limited in our view of what’s beautiful. I need a hook, a theme, to jump off of when writing. I need a muse. Maria Callas, you’re it.
I am at a point in my life, nearing 43—which I hope is not quite the half-way point—where I feel like what bit of beauty I have (and never had the sense or gratitude to appreciate in my younger days) is slipping away. South, to be exact. Towards R.E.M.’s Georgia maybe, where I’ve never been. Sliding down like a soft serve cone on a hot day. Soft, shapeless, worn, with an unflattering middle. I AM the unflattering middle. Or so I feel.
But in this investigation of muses, I learn that Maria Callas didn’t want the show to be over when the fat lady belted out the final high-note, so she lost a ton of weight—get this—mid-career. It is believed that this contributed to vocal decline and ended her career early. (Unlike robust Aretha Franklin, who could belt out “Nessun Dorma” in her 70s.) Then I think of Jennifer Grey (star of Dirty Dancing, pictured in the header image above), who famously had to have her atypical nose corrected, making her just another pretty face and taking away any character she once exuded, ruining her acting career.
So, the lesson here: learn to love the unflattering middle. Learn to accept and find beauty in the unflattering middle. Be it the middle of your torso, the middle of your face or the middle of your life (for those flat-tummied, tiny-nosed folks out there), you are at the point where you choose whether the glass is half-full or half-empty. Or rather, what you will do to fill the rest of your glass, or how you will enjoy and savour the half that is left. Welcome to my journey through the middle, at times unflattering, but soon to be loved fully.
E-Bow the Letter
Look up, what do you see?
All of you and all of me
Fluorescent and starry
Some of them, they surprise
The bus ride, I went to write this, 4:00 AM
This letter
Fields of poppies, little pearls
All the boys and all the girls sweet-toothed
Each and every one a little scary
I said your name
I wore it like a badge of teenage film stars
Hash bars, cherry mash and tinfoil tiaras
Dreaming of Maria Callas
Whoever she is
This fame thing, I don’t get it
I wrap my hand in plastic to try to look through it
Maybelline eyes and girl-as-boy moves
I can take you far
This star thing, I don’t get it
I’ll take you over, there
I’ll take you over, there
Aluminum, tastes like fear, there
Adrenaline, it pulls us near
I’ll take you over
It tastes like fear, there
I’ll take you over
Will you live to 83?
Will you ever welcome me?
Will you show me something that nobody else has seen?
Smoke it, drink
Here comes the flood
Anything to thin the blood
These corrosives do their magic slowly and sweet
Phone, eat it, drink
Just another chink
Cuts and dents, they catch the light
Aluminum, the weakest link
I don’t want to disappoint you
I’m not here to anoint you
I would lick your feet
But is that the sickest move?
I wear my own crown and sadness and sorrow
And who’d have thought tomorrow could be so strange?
My loss, and here we go again
I’ll take you over, there
I’ll take you over, there
Aluminum, tastes like fear, there
Adrenaline, it pulls us near
I’ll take you over
It tastes like fear, there
I’ll take you over
Look up, what do you see?
All of you and all of me
Fluorescent and starry
Some of them, they surprise
I can’t look it in the eyes
Seconal, spanish fly, absinthe, kerosene
Cherry-flavored neck and collar
I can smell the sorrow on your breath
The sweat, the victory and sorrow
The smell of fear, I got it
I’ll take you over, there
Aluminum, tastes like fear, there
Adrenaline, it pulls us near
I’ll take you over, there
Aluminum, tastes like fear, there
Adrenaline, it pulls us near
I’ll take you over
It tastes like fear, there
It pulls us near
I’ll take you over
I’ll take you over
It tastes like fear, there
It pulls us near
Pulls us near
Tastes like fear
Tastes like fear
Nearer, nearer
Pulls us near
Over, over, over, over
Over, over, over, over
Yeah, look over
I’ll take you there, oh, yeah
I’ll take you there
Oh, over
I’ll take you there
Over, let me
I’ll take you there
I’ll take you there
There, there, there, baby, yeah
Written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Michael Mills, Michael Stipe • Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group
Dreaming of Maria Callas 
I love you writing and your candor and your heart but the bit about feeling like your beauty is “slipping” made my heart heart. You have a sparkle and sweet inherent beauty that turns heads wherever you go. I’ve seen it. That beauty is not going anywhere.
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