Michael Stipe Confesses He Changed This Key 'Losing My Religion' Lyric

"Losing My Religion" is one of R.E.M.'s biggest hits, and during a visit to Rick Rubin's Broken Record podcast singer Michael Stipe revealed that a key lyric was changed before the song was recorded.

“I changed one lyric,” he recalled. “‘That’s me in the corner / That’s me in the kitchen’, what I was pulling from was being the shy wallflower who hangs back at the party or at the dance and doesn’t go up to the person that you’re madly in love with and say ‘I’ve kind of got a crush on you, how do you feel about me?’”

“There’s this whole relationship that’s happening only in the person’s mind and he doesn’t know whether he’s said too much or hasn’t said enough,” Stipe explained. “He’s like, in the corner of the dance floor watching everyone dance and watching the love of his life on the dance floor dancing with everyone cause that’s the most exciting person. Or, he’s in the kitchen behind the refrigerator.”

But as fans know, "kitchen" is not the word Stipe uses in the finished product, and the change completely altered the song's meaning. “I changed ‘kitchen’ to ‘spotlight’ and instantly of course the song became about me, which it never was,” he said.

Listen to the full interview above.