{"id":712,"date":"2020-01-29T20:33:56","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T01:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/takomatorch.com\/?p=712"},"modified":"2020-01-29T20:34:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T01:34:01","slug":"rockville-groups-sue-r-e-m-over-song-lyrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/29\/rockville-groups-sue-r-e-m-over-song-lyrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockville Groups Sue R.E.M. Over Song Lyrics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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ROCKVILLE, MD – Business leaders and homeowners associations\nannounced a lawsuit today against the legendary jangle-pop band R.E.M., seeking\na formal apology and millions of dollars in damages stemming from the band\u2019s\nsong (Don\u2019t Go Back to) Rockville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at a Rockville Chamber of Commerce press conference they described \u201cdecades of embarrassment, shame and lost economic activity” from the song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an emotional speech, 53-year-old Stewart Samuelson of Rockville described the searing experience of trying to convince his teenage son, Alex, that R.E.M. was actually cool, when they stumbled across some stunningly offensive lyrics.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We were listening to my vinyl copy of ‘Reckoning’, and\nit just jumped out at us,” explained Samuelson. \u201cI had told my son there\nwas a cool song about where we live, but never really thought about it much\nuntil that day. I mean, how many of Michael Stipe’s mumbling lyrics can you\nunderstand anyway?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s obvious that the 1984 song that never cracked the Top 100 charts refers to the former girlfriend of a band member whose parents wanted her to return to Rockville for the summer, but residents and business leaders say the song embarrassed their town, which is at risk of losing its religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all residents of Rockville felt the same. “I\u2019ve never even heard of this song, nor do I know what the big deal is,” said Jacob Landry, 32. “It’s not like it’s the end of the world as we know it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rockville Chamber of Commerce President Olive Cash claims the infamous song costs private sector businesses millions in lost revenue over 35 years since its debut. \u201cPeople now unfairly associate Rockville with suburban ennui, stated Cash. \u201cIn reality, Rockville is home to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s grave, and actually has some of the D.C. region\u2019s best Chinese food.” \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Hedrick, a housing economist and former candidate for\nRockville City Council, said the R.E.M. effect has artificially depressed\nhousing prices since 1984, causing a slight reduction in wealth from\nneighboring Bethesda. \u201cWe would have a lot more shiny, happy people in\nRockville if [R.E.M] hadn\u2019t been dissing us all these years,\u201d Hedrick\nsaid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked for comment, Stipe, 60, dismissed the lawsuits as frivolous, adding \u201cEverybody hurts, sometimes.\u201d However, he did state that for the right price, he\u2019d consider rewriting a few bigger hits to promote Rockville and greater Montgomery County to make amends. Tentative titles suggested by Stipe include \u201cLosing My McMansion”, “Nightshopping”, “Shiny NIMBY People” and “What’s the Frequency Kensington?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROCKVILLE, MD – Business leaders and homeowners associations announced a lawsuit today against the legendary jangle-pop band R.E.M., seeking a formal apology and millions of dollars in damages stemming from the band\u2019s song (Don\u2019t Go Back to) Rockville. Speaking at a Rockville Chamber of Commerce press conference they described \u201cdecades of embarrassment, shame and lost…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-culture","wpcat-12-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/stipe.jpg?fit=800%2C436&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPZSG-bu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions\/714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}