Background and History
According to the liner notes on In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, this song's title came from Douglas Sirk's 1959 film of the same name.
The song was placed on R.E.M.'s Warner Bros. Records "best of" album In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 in 2003. In the liner notes, Peter Buck states that after the release of the song he realized that the song follows roughly the same chord progression as "Driver 8" from 1985's Fables of the Reconstruction.
For R.E.M.'s 2003 tour in support of In Time, the band developed a new bridge for live performances of the song. Prior to that point, the bridge consisted of full instrumentation, with Stipe's "No-one can see you cry" vocal bringing them into the chorus. The new bridge included the same lyric but echoed between Stipe and Scott McCaughey three times throughout the 20-second midsection.
When the song is performed live, Stipe commonly alters the way in which he sings the first two choruses, using a lower register. Singing at a higher pitch, he states, is difficult to do live; on R.E.M. Live, he mentions how he "routinely sings off-key in the chorus."
Read more about this topic: Imitation Of Life (song)
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