The primary chords in this song -- A minor, E minor, D minor, and G, later adding F and C -- are some of the most basic chords you can play on a guitar. Some songwriters' entire careers have been established on music formed out of these rudimentary fingerings, which can be used in nearly infinite but always familiar-feeling combinations, with even more astounding potential introduced simply by pairing them with a creative vocal. I don't know if the inventor of the guitar formed their instrument for suitability of producing these timelessly loved chords, but the power of this instrument performing merely its basic functions has forever influenced the evolution of folk, rock, and even pop music in traditionally Western culture and beyond. Off of spontaneous memory, I could run you a list of probably 20 songs, legendary songs, that use that chord set.
That is part of what makes "Losing My Religion" so endearing, those chords, once again creatively re-employed.
Here's another part.
While the guitar is the foundation of this song, the star, the muse of this song is the mandolin. This has to be one of the most famous mandolin songs to pop audiences.
The mandolin part was the first part written for this song, and it was written mere days after Peter Buck of R.E.M. got his first mandolin and was trying to teach himself to play. According to his account, he preferred recording himself as he tried out new instruments, so the tape was rolling as he randomly noodled the iconic melody for "Losing My Religion" for the first time.
This happens so often with musicians, where new instruments inspire new ideas almost immediately, the exertion of the learning curve creating a potent songwriting trance. But it is something just as applicable to any pursuits in life.
Explore new challenges, and they can level you up!
This song benefits from the novelty of the unfamiliar mandolin, paired with the timeless chord pattern that has always rung true.
Along with the music of the song, there seems to be a tenuous balance between the old ways and the unfamiliar in the lyrics too. The term "losing my religion," is an expression from the Southern USA meaning to lose one's composure, to lose one's control. R.E.M., Southern boys that they are, maybe meant there to be greater modern spiritual connotations than that old saying traditionally conveyed, but when you know the meaning of that phrase and you know the other lyrics, it's pretty plain that this is more of a love song than a spiritual song. Maybe by using that phrase, Michael Stipe just wanted to be himself and use a saying he knew from back home. There is always something so comforting about using the regional words you grew up saying to express yourself in an adult world that can be alienating the further you wade out into a sea of strangers. Maybe this song has a bit of longing for the old feelings of familiarity, which I think is some of what romantic love is made of. But that's not all. Romantic love also involves a high coming from unfamiliarity. Really, it's a disorienting conflict between newness and the oldest of the old.
You want to know why this song was the hit it was?
Sure, the mandolin is pretty.
Sure, that chord set is used excellently.
But this song's sense of heavy longing, neither positive nor negative, just inevitable as the result of the passage of time and experience, the drift in adulthood from familiarity into worlds of strangeness, is what draws people in. It's something expressed so powerfully in every level of this song. And we comprehend all of it, even if we're too busy listening to hear.
