Details (and Metaphor) and R.E.M.: “I’m Jimmy Dean”

“Electrolite”

New Adventures In Hi-Fi

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.

You are the star tonight.
Your sun electric, outasight.
Your light eclipsed the moon tonight.
Electrolite.
You’re outasight.

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

You are the star tonight.
Your sun electric, outasight.
Your light eclipsed the moon tonight.
Electrolite.
You’re outasight.

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.

You are the star tonight.
Your sun electric outasight.
Your light eclipsed the moon tonight.
Electrolite.
You’re outasight.

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.

Applicable copyright is implicit (Copyright © R.E.M./Athens Ltd. for all R.E.M. originals).
These lyrics are official only when stated and in other cases represent a collaborative interpretation by fans.

Poems:

“Metaphors,” Sylvia Plath

“Those Winter Sundays,” Robert Hayden

“Traveling through the Dark,” William Stafford

“The Observer,” Adrienne Rich

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About plthomasedd

P. L. Thomas, Professor of Education (Furman University, Greenville SC), taught high school English in rural South Carolina before moving to teacher education. He is a former column editor for English Journal (National Council of Teachers of English), current series editor for Critical Literacy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres (Brill), and author of Teaching Writing as Journey, Not Destination: Essays Exploring What ‘Teaching Writing’ Means (IAP, 2019) and How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students: A Primer for Parents, Policy Makers, and People Who Care (IAP, in press). NCTE named Thomas the 2013 George Orwell Award winner. He co-edited the award-winning (Divergent Book Award for Excellence in 21st Century Literacies Research) volume Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-Truth America (Brill, 2018). Follow his work @plthomasEdD and the becoming radical (http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/).

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