“Losing My Religion” by R.E.M.

"Losing My Religion" was the first single from Out of Time, R.E.M.'s seventh album, released on Warner Bros. in 1991, and it's about the unlikeliest hit you could dream up: a rock song built on a mandolin. Peter Buck came up with the riff by improvising on the thing, and that nervy, circling figure carries the whole track, with guest Peter Holsapple strumming acoustic guitar beneath it and Bill Berry keeping the drums and percussion taut and restrained.

Michael Stipe wrote the words, about disillusionment and love that goes unreturned, and he sings them like a man confessing more than he meant to. Mike Mills plays bass and keyboards, handled the arrangement and adds his voice; the writing credit is split four ways, and Scott Litt produced with the band. There's no big guitar solo and no pounding chorus, just that mandolin and a voice on edge.

It became R.E.M.'s biggest hit in America, climbing to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and pulling in a whole new crowd. Tarsem Singh's video, heavy with religious imagery, swept 6 MTV Video Music Awards in 1991, Video of the Year among them, and at the Grammys in 1992 the song won Best Short Form Music Video and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The Grammy Hall of Fame took it in in 2017.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.