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I was a teenager, we were pretty much fully indoctrinated, thanks to sexual scare tactics. I remember so many public-health commercials with a B-actor in a fake alley background warning us to use protection or telling us the only real safe choice was abstinence. We were highly frightened of sex from day one. There was no free-swinging '90s.

Michael Stipe

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Michael Stipe
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: January 4
Actor
Composer
Film Producer
Guitarist
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Peace Activist
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Decatur
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John Michael Stipe
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More quotes by Michael Stipe

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Our generation was supposed to be about trying to deal with nuclear concerns and environmental disasters.
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In fact, a lot of critics seemed to consider R.E.M. the first American music since the '60s to break out on its own and develop a stand-alone sound.
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And I don't expect anyone can bring about a revolution in the way that Bob Dylan did - and really didn't - in the 1960s.
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I went through a period where I was really tired of seeing and reading about myself.
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We made part of the record in Miami, and I would go down to the beach, and not 20 feet from the water I see a fish that is at least seven feet long swimming close to the shore. I did not go back in the ocean the entire month.
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Sometimes I'm confused by what I think is really obvious. But what I think is really obvious obviously isn't obvious.
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I started lip-synching with Losing My Religion. There were a few horrendous mistakes we made, but I own those mistakes. I'm embarrassed by them. I always say when I look back at anything I've ever done, it's with equal dollops of humiliation and triumphant glory.
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I went through this difficult time [in the 1984] when we were making our third record where I kind of lost my mind. That's when the bulimia kicked in. And that's when I got really freaky.
Michael Stipe
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My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am.
Michael Stipe
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At the [teenage] time, I did have an inkling of my sexuality. And I had an inkling that I was different from other people in ways beyond my sexuality. But I didn't get into music because I thought, Oh, these people will understand me.
Michael Stipe
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Peter was sick of being a pop star, the guitar god, and so he decided to teach himself other instruments. Among the instruments that he picked up was the mandolin.
Michael Stipe
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I stopped taking drugs [in 1983]. There were a lot of things that led up to it. One thing was that a lover died. An ex of mine died in a car wreck and I was really trashed when I found out about it and I couldn't cry. I woke up the next morning and I said, That's it, so I quit then. It was horrible.
Michael Stipe
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I was doing that [a collaboration with Kurt Cobain] to try to save his life. The collaboration was me calling up as an excuse to reach out to this guy. He was in a really bad place.
Michael Stipe
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You don't need to be talented. You don't even have to play the guitar to be a guitar player in a punk-rock band. So I, in a very naïve and teenage way, said, That's it. I'm going to be in a band.
Michael Stipe
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I distinctly remember a conversation with my band in the van where I was having a complete meltdown. It was 1984, I think, and I was huddled in the back corner of our van and saying, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. I didn't want to play any more shows. I just wanted to stop.
Michael Stipe
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The whole punk ethic was do-it-yourself, and I've always been very literal, especially as a kid. When they said that anybody can do this, I was like, 'OK, that's me.'
Michael Stipe
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There is always something of the writer in the work but I don't think Melville had to be swallowed by a whale to write a great novel. If I had lived the lives of all the characters of the songs I've written, that would truly be an extraordinary story.
Michael Stipe
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I knew [Kurt Cobain] and his daughter. And Courtney [Love] came and stayed at my house. R.E.M. worked on two records in Seattle and Peter Buck lived next door to Kurt and Courtney. So we all knew each other. I reached out to him with that project as an attempt to prevent what was going to happen.
Michael Stipe
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Sometimes before we make a record I go back and listen to a few. It's equally humbling and uplifting.
Michael Stipe
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When I write, I tend toward melancholy, and the few times that I've tried pure joy in music, it doesn't really work that well. The joy can be through catharsis. I think that's what I do well, and observation.
Michael Stipe