Album: Up
Year: 1998
. . .
File Under Jumped
During the small European TV Show tour that R.E.M. undertook to promote Up, Michael Stipe would ocasionally introduce “Sad Professor” as an “one more incredibly depressing song” before they played it.
And hoo boy, he wasn’t kidding either, as “Sad Professor” was cut from the same musical cloth as “Sweetness Follows,” — Peter Buck strumming an acoustic while overdubbing an feedbacky electric guitar for the choruses, while Stipe told the story of someone who had hit rock bottom.
If we’re talking about love
Then I have to tell you
Dear readers, I’m not sure where I’m headed
I’ve gotten lost before
I’ve woke up stone drunk
Face down on the floor
The difference between “Sweetness Follows” and “Sad Professor” is that the former kinda floats into its chorus — Stipe not really changing his affect, the music too weary to do anything else — while the latter had a truly anthemic-sounding chorus, even as the words somehow get bleaker during it.
Late afternoon, the house is hot
I started, I jumped up
Everyone hates a bore
Everybody hates a drunk
Everyone hates a sad professor
I hate where I wound up
I hate where I wound up
Probably my favorite bit of singing on all of Up are during these choruses, especially the way he nails “I started / I jummmmmmmmmmmmpeeed uuuuuuuuuuuup” while Peter Buck crunches this electric guitar and Mike Mills bangs away underneath on a piano. It’s a fantastic contrast between a truly stirring piece of music and a completely depressing lyric.
It’s also a cooly ambiguous lyric: for years I’ve wondered exactly what a “sad professor” was. Is it someone who is a Professor but is also sad? Or is it someone who is always going around professing how sad they were. Probably the latter, of course, but I often think of it as the former. Either way, when Stipe sings “I hate where I wound up,” there is no ambiguity whatsoever about that.
“Sad Professor”
“Sad Professor” live in Hamburg, 1998
The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.
Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)
Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page
Leave a Reply