The Story Behind R.E.M.’s Swan-Song Single “We All Go Back to Where We Belong”

Over the course of their 30-year recording career, R.E.M. threw its audience plenty of curveballs. As soon as they got pigeonholed as a jangle rock band, they added harder edges to their sound on albums like Document and Green. They would go on to dabble in grunge, electronic music, and psychedelia. By the time R.E.M. released their last single with newly recorded material, fans shouldn’t have been surprised to hear them take a turn towards easy listening, but many likely didn’t see this final change in direction coming.

“We All Go Back to Where We Belong” was the only single from R.E.M.’s 2011 compilation Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage and it bore little resemblance to anything they had released before it. Yet it was the perfect way for Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe to cap off R.E.M.’s extraordinary run as an active recording act. “We All Go Back to Where We Belong” is even more notable for being a conscious acknowledgement of the band’s end.

Following Up Collapse into Now

While we can now look back at Collapse into Now as R.E.M.’s final album, it wasn’t always clear the band’s 15th studio album would be their last. What was certain was it would mark the fulfillment of R.E.M.’s most recent deal with Warner Bros. Records, which covered their final five studio albums. However, the remaining three members of the band had considered releasing a follow-up to Collapse into Now independently. (Absent from their last five studio albums was drummer Bill Berry, who left the group in 1997.)

R.E.M. went beyond simply thinking about making a 16th album, as they actually returned to the studio shortly after releasing Collapse into Now. They started by recording three new tracks at John Keane Studios in Athens, Georgia, going back to the college town where R.E.M. began. Two of the tracks—”A Month of Saturdays” and “Hallelujah” (an original composition, not to be confused with the Leonard Cohen classic)—had already been demoed during the sessions for Collapse into Now. The third new song was “We All Go Back to Where We Belong,” which also had origins going back to the recording of R.E.M.’s last album.

Acknowledging the End of an Era

In a 2011 interview for Consequence of Sound, Mills said that he had initially written the song on piano for possible inclusion on Collapse into Now. He recalled that “we couldn’t figure out a way to make it work” in its original form, so he gave the song a second try on guitar. The newer version was “much more accessible for Michael,” so the band was able to successfully record it. The final version is adorned with brass and string arrangements and gentle drumming, with Stipe’s vocals and Buck’s ascending and descending guitar lines prominent in the mix. While “We All Go Back to Where We Belong” has been compared to some of the quieter tracks from R.E.M.’s 2001 album Reveal, it is far more evocative of Burt Bacharach and less reminiscent of The Beach Boys.

Mills noted that by the time Stipe wrote lyrics for “We All Go Back to Where We Belong,” the band had decided to break up. The title implies a journey that has gone full circle, and the repeated line Is this really what you want? suggests some soul searching on the brink of a momentous decision. On September 21, 2011—two months after recording “We All Go Back to Where We Belong”—the group made its decision to disband public. Instead of recording a new album, Buck, Mills, and Stipe included the three new tracks on Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, which is R.E.M.’s first compilation to feature tracks recorded for both of their labels, I.R.S. and Warner Bros. The latter released “We All Go Back to Where We Belong” in October 2011, nearly a month prior to the release of Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage.

The Impact of “We All Go Back to Where We Belong”

The soft textures of “We All Go Back to Where We Belong” meant it didn’t find a home on mainstream rock stations, but it still got plenty of exposure on alternative rock formats. The song peaked at No. 13 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay rankings. Its 13-week stay was longer than that for each of the three singles from Collapse into Now (“Mine Smell Like Honey,” “Überlin,” and “Discoverer”) that registered on the chart. Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage debuted on the Billboard 200 at its peak position of No. 55 in December 2011, one week before “We All Go Back to Where We Belong” peaked on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart.

For a band as beloved as R.E.M., there is no way to break up without disappointing millions of fans. By releasing “We All Go Back to Where We Belong,” R.E.M. scripted as satisfying an ending to their storied career as they possibly could have. If there is any downside to having used this quiet gem of a song as a way to say goodbye, it’s that it didn’t keep their fans from wanting even more.

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