REM, Michael Stipe: “We love Wim Wenders and his films”

In “Until the End of the World”, a film by Wim Wenders recently returned to theaters, there is a story within a story and it is that of a lost gem of REM.
As I tell you in this other article, the film has one of the most beautiful cinematic soundtracks ever, with unreleased songs by , Lou Reed, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Nick Cave, Depeche Mode, U2 (who provided the title with the song that later appeared in “Achtun baby”). The story within the story is that of “Fretless”, an unreleased song recorded for “Out of time”, which the band gave to the German director. But at one point he regretted not having included it on their most successful album.

To create the soundtrack, Wenders talked to his favorite artists and friends and asked them to write unreleased songs while thinking of being in ’99, ten years later. U2 participated, who took up and finished a demo they were working on for “Achtung Baby”, from which Wenders took the title of the film, Talkin Heads, Lou Reed, Nick Cave (with whom Wenders had already worked for “The Sky Over Berlin”, Depeche Mode. And REM, in fact, who gave their “Fretless”.
In the film, the song plays from a jukebox in San Francisco where the two protagonists Sam (William Hurt) and Claire (Solveig Dommartin) meet after traveling around the world: “He’s got his work and she come easy/They each come around when the other is gone/Me, I think I got stuck somewhere in between”, sings Michael Stipe over a beautiful arpeggio of guitar and piano

I asked the band to remember that song, and Michael Stipe sent me this message:

we all know and revere wenders and his films. when asked, we were thrilled to provide ‘fretless’ for the film. this song in particular is resonant because the tone and complexity matches the emotional arcs of ‘until the end of the world’

The film is a story halfway between a road movie and a futuristic vision of the power of images: there is a machine capable of visualizing and recording dreams, but creating addiction. Claire and Sam chase each other as a satellite threatens a nuclear catastrophe while Eugene (Sam Neill), a writer and Claire’s ex, who tells the story

“Fretless” is not original, in the sense that it was not written for the film, but it is actually perfect for describing the central characters of the film. When “Until the End of the World” was released, the band had recently released “Out of Time” and was at the peak of success and “Fretless” had been recorded during those sessions together with “It’s a free world baby”, later used in the “Friends” soundtrack. The reason is that it is a melancholic song, which probably would have changed the tone of the album, where there was already an introspective song like “Country feedback”, which would later become a classic of the group. However, “Fretless”, in addition to being used by Wenders, was played live several times in television concerts of that period, including in MTV Unplugged (and also in the one the band did in Milan for MTV at the Shocking Club).

The song appeared on an album by the band only in 2004, in the collection “In Time”. And in the notes Peter Buck regretted not including it in “Out of time”: “I have no idea why it was left out. I already like a lot of some of the songs included on the album. Do an experiment: if you have recorders, make your tracklist, remove two songs that you like less, and insert Fretless and Free World Baby. Send your sequence to our offices, we will keep it in mind for some reprints”.

“It was an artistic decision between the band and Scott Litt, the producer,” Bertis Downs, the group’s manager, tells Rockol. “The band liked it, but the band wasn’t sure if it would work on ‘Out of Time’. Over the course of their career it happened with several of the group’s songs: “Revolution” in the 90s, “Romance” which was one of their most important live songs in the early days but never included in an album. And “Fascinating”, considered for at least three different records, known by fans, then released for charity many years later”

The transfer of an unreleased song for a film, explains Downs: “It depends on the film, the story, the director, how it is positioned in a scene or in the credits and how much of it is used, on the economic agreements. It is not a complex science, but there are many variables to keep in mind. Of course, the fact that it was a film by a director like Wenders made everything easier.”
“REM never features their music in commercials, but we like our songs to be used in films, from the early days.” A mechanism that continues: Downs cites as an example the use of “We all go back were we belong” in “Doc – nelle tue mani”, which we told you about some time ago-

When the deluxe edition for the 25th anniversary of “Out of time” was released in 2016, the tracklist remained the same, but “Fretless” was included as a bonus track in the demos. You can also find it in the collection of “complete rarities” on the platforms and in a wonderful acoustic version in “Unplugged 1991/2001: The Complete Sessions”, which the band released (only in physical format) in 2014.