Have I mentioned that I love the music from the 90s before? 😉 So today I will talk about some songs from R.E.M., U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

But first let me mention a song from the end of the 80s. In their song ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it’ by R.E.M. Michael Stipe and his band, when they still had hair, was already warning us that the world is heading towards the end and we need to do something. ‘It starts with an earthquake / Birds and snakes, an airplane’ he sings, foreseeing 9/11? He then lists the world problems: ‘government for hire, overflow, population, common food, a tournament of lies’ and predicts where it is all heading. And as we now know, he was already right then.

Then in 1991 another band called U2 offered us a solution to world problems in their song ‘Mysterious ways’. It’s Love. Bono sings: ‘You’ve been running away/ From what you don’t understand’ but it’s alright because ‘She moves in mysterious ways’. And then explains: ‘Let her talk about the things you can’t explain / To touch is to heal / To hurt is to steal / If you want to kiss the sky / Better learn how to kneel.’ And then give us Faith and Hope with these words: ‘One day you will look back / And you’ll see / Where you were held / How by this love / While you could stand / There you could move on this moment / Follow this feeling.’

The same year littler known band Red Hot Chili Peppers had their breakthrough album released, titled ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’, that made them famous worldwide. On this album there is a song called ‘The Righteous & The Wicked’ where Anthony Kiedis says it all openly: ‘Holy Mother Earth / Crying into Space / Tears on her pretty face / ‘Cause she has been raped / Killing your future blood, fill her with disease / Global abortion, please, that is what she needs’. And maybe the pandemic is just the self defense mechanism of our planet?

Lately I heard a few people referring to the climate change problems as an outcome of the rape of our Mother Earth and they felt like it’s a very strong word. But Red Hot Chili Peppers were signing about it already 30 years ago! The same year Michael Stipe from R.E.M. was loosing his religion which made him and his band mates internationally famous. And then he became spiritual: ‘You and me/ We know about time / We know how things go / They come and go / They live and grow / They pass and go / And glow and glow / Up and down / High and low (…) / I skipped the part about love/ It seems so silly and low.’

But the truth is Love is our only hope. And we always knew it: 30, 600 or 9,000 years ago.