REM’s Mike Mills, who received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Mercer University, not only shared with the graduating class some anecdotes from his wealth of experience as a rock musician, he also sang “Losing My Religion.”
Mills has been friends with violinist Robert McDuffie since childhood, and they toured the United States together in 2016. His colleague has strong ties to Mercer University as the founder of the Robert McDuffie Center For Strings.
Mike Mills doesn’t have a college degree
In his speech, Mills thanked the college and McDuffie and, to the astonishment of the audience, said that he himself never graduated from college. The bassist then sang and played a version of “Losing My Religion” on guitar, while McDuffie accompanied him on violin.
While most Mercer University students may not have spotted REM in their parent’s record collection at most once (no wonder: the track is eight years older than the average college grad that year), “Losing My Religion” will sure to be common. No song by the band around singer Michael Stipe is better known.
ROLLING STONE editor and REM expert Birgit Fuss once wrote: “’Losing My Religion’ is many things: a perfect pop song, a yearning ballad and an undisguised manifesto. After that, REM didn’t succeed again in such a perfect four minutes. But maybe they just didn’t want to be on the grocery store radio station.”