Happy Birthday Michael Stipe: Singing Syd Barrett’s ‘Dark Globe’

Vocalist Michael Stipe of seminal college rock band R.E.M. celebrates his birthday today. Though Stipe and fellow R.E.M. members Peter Buck and Mike Mills called it quits in 2011, the now 57-year-old singer, songwriter, actor, activist and filmmaker continues to infiltrate art and culture. For the fiercely undefinable musician’s birthday today, here’s a look back at him leading the iconic band he fronted honoring another legendary rock icon.

In the late-1980s R.E.M. began covering “Dark Globe” by founding Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett. For several years the song was regularly played live by the band that at the time also included Bill Berry, with Stipe delivering a haunting interpretation of the song from Barrett’s 1970 debut solo LP The Madcap Laughs. They recorded a studio version of the “Dark Globe” which was first released in 2014 on the compilation Complete Rarities: Warner Bros. 1988–2011.

Barrett’s Pink Floyd band mate Roger Waters described meeting R.E.M. backstage at one of their early concerts held at Hammersmith Odeon in London (likely in May 1989). Though he said Stipe kept to himself, the frontman impressed Waters with a solo a cappella rendition of “Dark Globe” during the encore that evening. Here’s Roger talking about the experience:

Here’s Michael leading R.E.M. on the studio version released on the compilation issued in 2014:

Finally, here’s a live version of Stipe and R.E.M. covering “Dark Globe”: