671 - R.E.M Losing my Religion 1991

The song was released as the first single from the group's 1991 album "Out of Time". Based around a mandolin riff, "Losing My Religion" was an unlikely hit for the group. R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck wrote the main riff and chorus to the song on a mandolin while watching television one day. Buck had just bought the instrument and was attempting to learn how to play it, recording the music as he practiced. Buck said, "When I listened back to it the next day, there was a bunch of stuff that was really just me learning how to play mandolin, and then there's what became 'Losing My Religion', and then a whole bunch more of me learning to play the mandolin".
In the song, Michael Stipe sings the lines "That's me in the corner/That's me in the spotlight/Losing my religion". The phrase "losing my religion" is an expression from the southern region of the United States that means losing one's temper or civility, or "being at the end of one's rope." Stipe told The New York Times the song was about romantic expression.He told that "Losing My Religion" is about "someone who pines for someone else. It's unrequited love, what have you".