A few reminders about this song, especially this time of year...never have I seen, more so heard, so many people misunderstand the concept of a "false ending."
The phrase is self-explanatory (or so I thought). You’re a DJ and the song you’re playing starts to wind down. You’re paying attention and you think you can guess as to when it will end. But – hold on - it’s not really the end, so you have to be ready for the real ending that will follow, either a second later or longer. Electrolite ends with Michael Stipe singing, "I'm not scared, I'm outta here." The music is trailing off and the impending end of the song is close at hand and just when you think he’s done singing whatever it is the song is about, he adds one more "I'm not scared." The music has ended by now and following a brief pause, he adds a final, "I'm outta here."
Perhaps, as student management, we had chastised anything remotely similar to "dead air" upon our fellow undergraduates. Perhaps these DJs wanted to tighten their board and not waste those precious seconds of empty airtime. Whatever the case, no sooner had we entered Electrolite into rotation did we discover that DJs were assuming that once the music was over that the song was over. No, that would be a false assumption – similar in concept to the aforementioned false ending. Yes, once they assumed the song had ended, people were beginning another song, running a station liner or sweeper, or (funniest yet) opening the microphone and talking – just to be interrupted by Stipe's singing a few seconds later.
In an attempt to make things easier on the staff – since these same DJs were not bothering to put the CD into the cue channel and listen to the ending before they played it on the air, which would have solved this problem – the music director added a note to the playlist that this song had a false ending. From there it was always a hoot to hear which people read the playlist verses those who didn't. If we, as station management, "magically" showed up a few minutes later, more often than not the DJ would mutter something about the trick ending of the song throwing them off. After a while you could only smile and nod – and then point out the note on the playlist. That is, if you wanted to spend that time beating it back into their head.
I personally knew about the ending because I owned a copy of the album and had listened to the song numerous times, becoming familiar with the nursery rhyme-like simplicity of its wistful lyrics. You wanted to sing-along with phrases like Steve McQueen and James Dean – know what I mean? It spoke of a loss and of how things could have been and sounded anything-but-upbeat and thus was the perfect song for me to sign-off with when ending a melancholy Halloween evening a decade ago –
Descanse en la paz.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Electrolite
(Bill Berry/Peter Buck/Mike Mills/Michael Stipe)
R.E.M.
From the album New Adventures in High-Fi
1996
Your eyes are burning holes through me
I'm gasoline
I'm burnin' clean
Twentieth century go and sleep
You're Pleistocene
That is obscene
That is obscene
(chorus)
You are the star tonight
Your sun electric, outta sight
Your light eclipsed the moon tonight
Electrolite
You're outta sight
If I ever want to fly
Mulholland Drive
I am alive
Hollywood is under me
I'm Martin Sheen
I'm Steve McQueen
I'm Jimmy Dean
(repeat chorus)
If you ever want to fly
Mulholland Drive
Up in the sky
Stand on a cliff and look down there
Don't be scared, you are alive
You are alive
(repeat chorus)
Twentieth century go and sleep
Really deep
We won't blink
Your eyes are burning holes through me
I'm not scared
I'm outta here
I'm not scared
I'm outta here
