Escape (The Parenthetical Rock Song Countdown #6): (Don't Go Back to) Rockville

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It's time to look at another one of those songs that have a title that includes a word or phrase or something else in parentheses. Here comes the next song on my list of favorite rock songs that have a parenthetical title...and it's a most historical first. #6: (Don't Go Back to) Rockville - R.E.M. @teamfreak16 and I have borrowed each other's ideas for music countdown themes since back in the B-place days. And, would you believe, despite similar music tastes and nearness of age (I think I'm four years older than he), in all of these we have NEVER matched on a song. That means we went through rain songs and three decades of one-hit wonders and didn't match any songs. Until now. That should tell you something about this song and this band. In my "favorite debut albums" countdown I listed R.E.M.'s first album, Murmur, as among my favorites. It took a while for "the masses" to catch on (R.E.M.'s first "big hit" commercially came from their fifth album...not counting the EP), but better late than never. Trapped on the island of Oahu, with no radio to listen to, I relied on USA's Night Tracks (which frequently showed videos that MTV did not), MTV, and scouring reviews to see who was supposed to be really good but wasn't getting airplay. I picked up R.E.M.'s first album after seeing them on Letterman, so their two albums and EP were a frequent source of solace in that naturally gorgeous but musically dead world. Amazingly, R.E.M. played in Honolulu on Halloween, 1984...the day I found out I was going to be medically discharged from the Navy. Among my favorites from their second album -- and, for that matter, their entire career -- is this song about the loneliness in a strange town after leaving a relationship. I guess I felt that in Honolulu ("knowing well nobody says 'hello,' they don't talk to anybody they don't know" [the military wasn't well-liked when I was stationed there]), so it resonated with me. Per Picky Wedia Mike Mills wrote this song about breaking up with a girlfriend who was from Rockville, Maryland. But anywhere you go carrying loneliness as your primary luggage is Rockville to you. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville Written by Mike Mills (credited to Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe) Recorded by R.E.M. From Reckoning, 1984 It's not as though I really need you: