“Texarkana” by R.E.M.

On Out of Time, R.E.M.'s 1991 album, "Texarkana" is where Mike Mills steps up to the mic. Michael Stipe had spent weeks stuck for words, so the bassist wrote the song himself, music and lyrics, and sang lead, even though the credit is split four ways. Mills arranged it and plays bass and keyboards, Peter Buck handles electric guitar and Bill Berry drums and percussion, while guests Peter Holsapple and John Keane add acoustic and steel guitar to a sunny, wide-open sound.

The title is a leftover: Texarkana, the region straddling the Texas-Arkansas line, was in Stipe's original chorus before it got rewritten, a draft that surfaced on the Outtakes of Time bootleg and the album's 25th anniversary edition. Never an official single, it still climbed to number four on Modern Rock Tracks and number seven on Mainstream Rock Tracks.

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