I can’t have been the only one to have been shocked at the lyrics in HiFi 25th anniversary book revealed the lyric in Electrolite is not “Plasticine”? Really?
This reminds me (vice versa) of of an old and lost review of the first single from Accelerate which posited that it was very REM/Michael Stipe to have used the word “supercilious” in a song title/chorus. Whoops!
I had no idea.
But it seems to make more sense.
Twentieth century, go to sleep
You’re Pleistocene
That is obscene
That is obscene
The Pleistocene epoch is a geological time period that includes the last ice age, when glaciers covered huge parts of the globe.
Pleistocene epoch: The last ice age | Live Science
Lets see…
So, this reinforces the “goodbye” to the 20th Century. Michael, an optimist, has often spoken fondly of the future - indeed, of the progressive need to move beyond the bullshit of the old/present day (see also: Electron Blue). Here, he depicts the present day, as it was then, as frozen, unchanging, requiring a thawing that would bring about change, life.
This may also refer to an attitude in LA which he also found to be unchanging. Electrolite isn’t only a goodbye to the 20th Century, it’s a flight from a Los Angeles he did not connect with.
"requiring a thawing that would bring about change, life.
This ". Which is global warming, get it?