Reading Rock Lyrics:

The printed lyrics do not agree in full with what is sung. The differences are manifold: the chorus has been reduced to one occurrence, the backing vocals (in the chorus, Mills sings `freedom' over and over) have been removed or ignored, the ending is more coherent in printed form than the sung version on the CD, a few repetitions are removed, and the layout moves some words from their logically rightful place: `I know the barricades, and/I know the mortar in the wall breaks` is the official form of one passage, where logically, the sung version would be printed as: `I know the barricades/And I know the mortar in the wall breaks.` The significance of these changes can be discussed endlessly; especially the removal of the backing vocals has quite an impact on the text as a whole. What they achieve for the poetic form and style of the text is undeniably positive, however. Much superfluous repetition is removed, making the poem more condensed and concise, and the slight repositionings of some words breaks up the mechanical look of their respective lines. The overall effect is to give the text a higher impact on the reader, adding interest and preventing the reading experience from becoming too unimpressive and tedious.

My opinion is that the printed lyrics are the real lyrics. Then, in recording the album, vocal variations were performed, and these variations are what produces most of the differences. As for the chorus, it is printed only once, where it has the most significance to what the text means, in order to avoid needless repetition that would feel redundant.

It is clear, then, that determining the form of an R.E.M. text is not unproblematic, even in this special case where there exists a definitive written version. The content of those texts, however, is even less easy to absorb. In doing so, the beginning of `World Leader Pretend' is vital to understanding the entire text; a not uncommon situation, as Lori Hope Lefkovitz explains: `Beginnings, like endings, assume special status in structural analyses. Silence or a blank page is rich in potential, but how we break the silence establishes expectations for what will follow. Setting out in a direction limits the possibilities for what may be said thereafter.` [6] Accordingly, the first two lines of 'World Leader Pretend' set up the themes for the poem. The narrator sits at his table, waging war on himself, and thinking that `. . . it seems like it`s all for nothing.` This is the only reference to the narrator`s environment and physical actions: he is sitting down, inert, and planning his internal war despite realising that it is a waste of time. Thus apathetic inertia is an important theme, and so is war. As we shall see, these two concepts are closely linked. Moreover, the idea of a war against oneself implies a battleground in which to fight this war. As later evidence will support, this battleground is the narrator`s social life, which is represented metonymically by remnants of his relationships with other people, and with the narratee in particular.

From line three, four main systems are set up: War, Games, Power, and the narrator`s Private World. The lines from three to six make it clear that war is something that the narrator understands, and sets up several signifiers of static defence: `barricades,' `walls,' `defenses' and a `mortar,' possibly installed as a permanent emplacement in a defensive line - something like the Maginot Line. The mortar is decidedly ambiguous because it could also refer to the material that keeps his defensive walls together; both interpretations will soon become useful. The next four lines, seven through ten, contain the gaming terms `rematch' and `stalemate,' as well as a good deal of power jargon: words like `decree,' `demand' and `proclaim,' all of which have a ring of royal proclamations, are used. All demands and all the games reinforce the status quo which the narrator is trying to preserve by defending himself so desperately: every positive statement is immediately negated in the same line. `I demand' is a forceful expression signifying authority and power, but what is demanded is merely `a rematch;' `I decree a stalemate' works on the same principle. Similarly, a forceful proclamation is made, but it undermines its own power when the content of the proclamation is revealed - `claims are left unstated.' Significantly, there is a balance in quantity between War and Power. This structural balance between War and Power implies an equality of importance; the Games seem less important because they are underrepresented. There is, however, an affiliation between Power and Games, a great deal closer than that between Games and War. Both of the obvious uses of Game language are put together with demanding Power words: `I demand a rematch/I decree a stalemate' (my italics). This implies that the use of Power contains more elements of Games than War does; Power is less reliable, more chancy, and at the same time more rule-bound than War is. At the same time, by associating with the one but not with the other, the Games create a conceptual split between the two others. War and Power now seem incompatible with each other.

Then the private world of the narrator is established: `This is my world, and/I am world leader pretend/This is my life, and/This is my time.` These lines imply that his world cannot be readily understood by others; he has to show them everything because only he knows anything. This makes his reality utterly private, and not compatible with the realities of other people. In other words, the narrator is isolated from his would-be companions because of his unique and incomprehensible view of the world. This view is also egotistic; consider the fact that the narrator rules this world alone, and seems unwilling to let anyone into it. Then consider how often words like `I,` `me,` and `my` are used, and the picture of a person isolated by dint of his own egotism and stubborn refusal to let other people interact with him is well on its way to completion. His only hope of redemption is the narratee who `fill[s] in the mortar' and the `harmony,' sharing human warmth and offering a social relationship, but the narrator variously sees this as his salvation (`You fill in the harmony') and as a threat to his security (he refuses to let anyone other than himself knock his defences down).

The notion of War, so ubiquitous, is never connected to anything positive. Instead, it is described in terms of breaking walls, stagnation and static defences. The same holds true for Power, with its `stalemate,' `rematch' and the unwillingness to let go of power that is implicit in the phrase `This is my mistake. Let me make it good,' which can be taken to mean `This is my mistake. Let me fail completely.' Games are only ever mentioned as ending in `stalemate' and `rematch.' The Private World seems blissfully ignorant of all this until the middle of the poem, where two lines stick out, blatantly demanding attention: `Reach out for me, hold me tight, hold that memory./Let my machine talk to me, let my machine talk to me.` Suddenly, the isolation is acknowledged, begging for something to break the silence, break the walls; admitting that the lack of social contact has not left him unaffected. A quick overview of the relationships between the first three systems and what their connections imply shows that whenever there is War, or Power, or Games at work, failure is imminent. This connection between the major systems and lack of success can be clarified by means of a table: [7]

+ War - War

+ Power - success - Power + success

+ Games - Games

Although the four systems in the poem are all delineated in terms of their own failure, stagnation and inertia, they also have one positive cultural value in common: ingenuity. You need a certain amount of intelligence and/or talent in order to devise any of these four systems, or to become good at them. This is akin to certain aspects of the mythical level of signification generated by War, Power, Games and Private Worlds. These systems, in the context of traditional Western society, all have in common that they are associated with failure, with immobility, with tactics and with intelligence. No war can be lost, and consequently not won either, without a certain degree of failure; the same holds true for the exercise of power and for playing games. The private world is a failure because its only reason to exist is to maintain its own existence; it consumes mental resources without producing anything except itself, and is thus a waste of time and energy - a failure. The immobility of static defences cannot be denied, and the main use for power is to preserve one`s own power. This is entirely in keeping with the Marxist claim that all parties behave similarly when in power - they are only different from each other when in opposition or during election campaigns. Games seldom lead anywhere, especially when they are stalemated or replayed like the ones in this text. They are often seen as a waste of time, at least by those not participating. The poem has picked up on and reinforced these aspects of its main themes by stating them more or less overtly, tying the text closer to society and increasing the probability that the reader, having perceived these ties, will interpret the text in terms of what it wants to say about Western culture. With this in mind, it is obvious that the author thinks it important that this is what the reader will do, since he has gone to such lengths to try to secure a particular mode of analysis. Having said this, my own analysis, which indeed picked up on those leads and is following the suggested path (albeit I will continue past the path, some distance into the uncharted territory beyond), will now go on to its second stage.

Intelligence, and even more obviously, tactics are very important in wars, in games, and in power exertion, in subtly different ways; so subtle are the differences, in fact, that the guidelines found in The Art Of War by Sun Tzu, an ancient Japanese handbook in the tactics, strategy and psychology of war, are often applied to modern corporate business plans with good results. It could perhaps be argued that Sun Tzu was the first semiotician. As for the Private World, the idea of tactics is less readily applicable, though some degree of intelligence is needed for the creation of such a world, in order to make it believable. However, there is no need for the equation to be perfect between all these systems; they are sufficiently tightly strung together to validate the idea of equating the content and purpose of all four systems. I would like to invoke the War/Power balance here: the ideas related to War should be equal in importance to the ideas related to Power, of which the Games are an allied system. The division between War and Power mentioned earlier will also need to be taken into consideration at a later stage. The Private World, by implication, is the sum of the other three systems, complete with a set of rules to govern their interaction.

The next level of signification seeks an answer to the question `what do failure, immobility, tactics and intelligence have in common?` The answer is misguided efforts, or endeavours ending in non-achievement. Any plan, no matter how cleverly conceived, will fail if it falls prey to inertia, stagnation and isolation. In the poem, this is exactly what has happened: the narrator hides inside his private world, behind his social and mental barricades, carefully constructed but unreliable, and finally constraining. All his defensive strategies are `all for nothing` - useless - and he is stuck where he was prior to shutting himself off from society - perhaps he has even regressed since then. He is the product of a social environment that forces people to put up mental barriers to avoid getting hurt by everyday social contact. Ironically, the narrator`s biggest failure is to have shielded himself too well, and his second biggest is not to have perfected his defences, letting someone in and forcing him to consider giving the defence up altogether. Again ironically, this second biggest failure is also his greatest success - it is his way back to a normal contact with reality and with society, through the channels of human closeness and warmth. Being a different kind of power than the narrator`s own warlike one, entirely in keeping with the fickle nature of Power endowed by its connection to Games, this warmth enacts the opposition between Power and War, breaking down the will to fight and defend.

The text reads, on the fourth level of social or cultural signification, as a statement on Western society; the current social system forces us to put up mental and social defences against each other, and as a result, people become unnecessarily estranged. Though the narrator is trying to modify this behaviour in himself, the poem as a whole does not prompt us into action. It is more of a passive warning than a call to arms. There is nothing here of `Harborcoat` and its imperative to `react: R-E-A-C-T.` Instead, the narrator describes his own situation, possibly in the hope that others may learn from the error of his ways, but without overtly saying it.

By looking to semiotics and Roland Barthes`s theory of the perpetual sliding of the signified under the signifier, I have laid bare a deep structure that partly supports what a surface reading would suggest, which is that the narrator of `World Leader Pretend` has shielded himself off from society. However, in addition to fleshing out this theme considerably and discovering in what ways it supports itself and constructs its message, I also found a motivation for the whole poem: his defences are inevitably breaking down and he feels a need to re-establish his place in society. This second point is easily missed, but a semiotic reading brought it out with ease. Semiotics, however, is not the only approach that produces significant and possibly surprising results when applied to `World Leader Pretend;' a radically different but equally interesting result is produced by deconstruction, for example.

I will not attempt a full-scale deconstructionist reading of 'World Leader Pretend', since that would miss the target of my essay; I am not trying to show that all texts are created equal, and can be unravelled into nothingness. I am trying to show that critical approaches can add new dimensions to the lyrics of R.E.M. Nevertheless, a gentle application of deconstruction is certainly helpful: for this coming section, I have borrowed the idea on which the reading is based from Paul de Man. In his Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rosseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust, he performs a reading of Yeats`s poem `Among School Children`, where he seriously attacks the standard readings of the final lines, `O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,/How can we know the dancer from the dance?` [8] De Man asks why the last line must necessarily be read figuratively rather than literally; certainly, there is no footnote or other instruction that tells us to do so, and so he sets out to show that the entire scheme set up by the first [traditional] reading can be undermined, or deconstructed, in terms of the second, in which the final line is read literally as meaning that, since the dancer and the dance are not the same, it might be useful, perhaps even necessary - for the question can be given a ring of urgency, `Please tell me, how can I know the dancer from the dance' - to tell them apart. [9]

I shall borrow this frame of mind from de Man and apply it to 'World Leader Pretend'. As I have shown earlier, the text obviously favours a symbolic reading, making it plain that we should read the war references as referring to the internal war in the narrator and his social struggle. This opposition between symbolic (privileged) and literal (discouraged) is clearly hierarchical with symbolism being dominant, making it easier to read `World Leader Pretend` figuratively than literally; thus, in a mildly deconstructionist spirit and in search of new insights, I will now attempt to reverse this binary opposition as it applies to the dominant theme: War.

The beginning reads much the same as in the semiotic interpretation, but not exactly. The table becomes a part of the traditional realist metonymic description technique, and whereas the narrator in the symbolic reading sits at his table in the sense that he is inactive, and plans a metaphorical war against his own dark side, in a literal reading he is planning an actual war, and he commands both sides in the conflict. There is obviously a conflict of interests here: which side is he really on? Which side will he allow to win - the attackers or the defenders? He is in a position to single-handedly decide the outcome of a whole war. In short, this narrator is no social outcast - he is a very successful double agent. Next we are told that this commander is a skilled attacker, having practised the weapons of the attacking side well, and a skilled defender, having planned an excellent defence for that side. This will either be a very bloody war, or an impeccably clean and deathless one, since both sides are good at what they are doing.

Then follow the game references. In the name of his country, or his ideals, or whatever he is fighting for as a defender, he proclaims that the land claims, the military advances, of the attackers were not properly claimed, and so are not properly won. He demands that the maps and other documents be matched again to see what has happened, and the conclusion will be that everything is as it was; the attacker has not advanced any further. Military terminology has borrowed the chess term stalemate for describing just such a situation, where neither attacker nor defender is able to gain an advantage.

After that, the narrator/general again subtly admits to being on both sides of the conflict: `I recognize the weapons/I`ve practiced them well, I fitted them/Myself.` Of course he recognises the weapons of his enemy: after all, they are his, and the enemy is himself. `It`s amazing what devices you can sympathize, empathize:` it is amazing how you can come to enjoy doing things (using devices in the sense of tricks and tactics) and using machines (devices in the sense of machinery) that you originally despised. This general did not initially like being at war, but now he does, to his own amazement. It is his mistake, his fault, that this situation ever came about, so he wants to make it good, that is, follow it through and make the best of it. He has built his defensive walls, and will now knock them down. Note the tone of childish egotism and indulgent pleasure in the line: `I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down.` He does not want to let anyone else ruin his walls, because it is so much fun and he wants to do it himself. Then perhaps he can retreat, order a new wall to be built, and blast that one too, in an orgy of selfish pleasure; war for war`s sake. In fact, the short break, from the narration (the two lines are unique in being indented) as well as from the war (a short break for relaxation) emphasises this side of the narrator: `reach out for me, hold me tight` is, of course, an order (military style again), telling someone to get close to him. Providing closeness on demand, and more, is usually a role assigned to the harlot, who after the act, or maybe during it, is told to be proud of having this customer: `hold that memory.` The implication here is: `I am a great general and a generally great man, and I chose insignificant little You for my pleasure. You should be grateful.` Then comes what underscores the narrator`s enjoyment of war: the machine calls him back, or rather, he wants it to call him back fast so he can continue to fight instead of wasting time on other humans, away from the front-line. The machine may be either his defence machinery, his attacking war machine, or simply a telephone, beeper or pager, bringing a message that he is needed in the war, and should come immediately. Either way, he wants to get back to his fighting as fast as possible.

The narrator is the ruler of the world around him; the king of all he sees. With generalship comes power, and with complete command over both sides in a conflict, you have absolute power. This is his life, the way he wants it to be, and his time to do as he pleases. No one can command him, and he is free to follow his every whim; his next whim is to attack again and destroy another wall, all for pure self enjoyment. An important point is repeated, which is that the general here is still amazed at his own willingness to fight, but he embraces it: `let me make it good.` There is no turning back now, and he is going to enjoy this situation for as long as he can. Build another wall. Break it down. Then build another one. The `you,` or narratee, here is obviously not the narratee of the semiotic reading: here it refers to his loyal subjects, the workers or soldiers who keep building new walls, filling in with new mortar between the bricks so the narrator can attack again and feel good - in harmony with his true nature, if you like. Thus, the wall-builders, by extension, fill in his personal harmony and happiness when they make sure the war will last longer. The poem is rounded off with yet another wall being built, on the narrator`s own orders, and doomed to be knocked down by no one but himself.

In this reading, instead of finding out what the `World Leader Pretend' says about Western society and the social isolation it brings, it tells us about a dark side in the narrator`s nature; the part of him that enjoys death, destruction and fighting. The pointless nature of war is highlighted and brought to its extreme by letting the general take command over both sides, fighting his own forces for no purpose other than pleasure; pleasure which he finds en masse. This is very different indeed from the results yielded by a semiotic reading, and not easily found by any kind of surface reading, though equally valid as any other reading. I believe that deconstruction is the only tool that would dig this peculiar interpretation out of `World Leader Pretend`, but once out, I can see it clearly, and it touches upon a valid and frightening point about the pleasure of violence. This reading is essential in bringing out all layers of meaning present in this work, although it can obviously not do so alone; the different theories tend to complement each other rather more than they overlap.

There is of course much more to add to a full reading of this song; for example the way a structuralist would find strong ties between war and isolation, games and isolation, power and isolation, by the fact that every line concerning these three concepts starts with `I.` By force of binary oppositions, this is further reinforced at the end of the song, where `you` (the opposite of `I` and thus the opposite of isolation) `fill[s] in the mortar` (making the cannon-mortar unusable - opposing the ideas of war and power; alternatively, becomes a substitute for whatever is holding his defensive wall together - changing the nature of the dead wall by incorporating something human into it) and `the harmony` (unity with oneself or with society - a further reinforcement of `you` opposing isolation).