"Strange Currencies" is a song by R.E.M.. It was included on the album Monster and was also released as a single in 1995. The single hit #9 in the UK singles chart and peaked at #47 in the United States.
The song almost didn't make it on the album, due to its rhythmic similarities to another R.E.M. song, "Everybody Hurts." Yet Michael Stipe's melody, the band felt, was too good to pass over, so the original rhythm was slightly reworked. Stipe has said that it's about "when somebody actually thinks that, through words, they're going to be able to convince somebody that they are their one and only."
The video, directed by Mark Romanek, was shot on the first anniversary of the death of Michael Stipe's close friend River Phoenix and features River Phoenix's last girlfriend, actress Samantha Mathis.
Read more about Strange Currencies: Track Listing
Famous quotes containing the word strange:
“A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to love.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)