Hope - R.E.M.

Hope - R.E.M.

5:01
Up, 1998

Written by Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, and Leonard Cohen

This song is not a collaboration between Athens' finest and the Greatest Canadian Songwriter, but, as becomes obvious as soon as you hear it, a credit was given to Cohen due to the song's similarity both lyrically and sonically to his "Suzanne."  Lyrically, the song is addressed to someone facing a medical scare: "You want to trust the doctors / Their procedure is the best / But the last try was a failure / And the intern was a mess."  The addressee looks to science and religion and salvation anywhere, any kind of deliverance, no matter how foolish the hope seems.  "You want to cross your DNA with something reptile."  I read this as having insane hopes, like wanting aliens to come save you with their advanced technology, to undergo a science experiment no matter how far-fetched, like the Lizard in Marvel Comics who wanted to regrow his arm with reptile DNA.  It's grim and terribly touching.