"Everybody Hurts"
By Rev Graeme
"Everybody Hurts" is a song by R.E.M., originally released on the band's 1992 album Automatic for the People and was also released as a single in 1993. It peaked at number twenty nine on the Billboard Hot 100, and peaked within the top ten of the charts in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and France.
In the 1980s, R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe preferred to sing his cryptic lyrics in mumbled, mysterious tones. But for this openhearted 1992 ballad, Stipe made his intentions plain, delivering one of his most plaintive performances. Over comforting, churchly keyboards and strings, Stipe consoles the listener, urging him or her not to give up. "Everybody hurts sometimes," he says, "so hold on."
When your day is long And the night, the night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough Of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go 'Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone (Hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go (Hold on)
If you think you've had too much Of this life, well hang on
Everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts
Don't throw your hand, oh no Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone No, no, no, you are not alone
If you're on your own in this life The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on
Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes
So hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts
Everybody Hurts is not a typical REM song. For one thing, you can make out all of singer-songwriter Michael Stipe's words. More importantly, it's immediately obvious what they mean: don't give up. It was, for example, the first song played by Radio 1 after the two minutes' silence to mark 1996's Dunblane shootings. A version edited to include the sounds of the attacks on the Twin Towers was widely circulated online in late 2001. And the track rubbed shoulders with Candle In The Wind and I'll Be Missing You on the official Diana Memorial album. In 2010 the DAILY MAIL reported "REM's Everybody Hurts to be Simon Cowell's charity Haiti single…as stars line up to take part "The song also has been attributed with a more person connection. In the 1993 video, Stipe is portrayed among drivers stuck in an almighty Texas traffic jam, each with troubles on his or her mind, all of these conveyed in subtitles. Among them is a teenager staring out of a window, thinking: "They're going to miss me." The lyrics and the official video have led some to conclude that suicide - especially among the young - is the personal problem with which Everybody Hurts is most often associated with. In a wider sense "Everybody Hurts" is song that is applicable for any who are going through situations and problems that have taken over their lives.
"Everybody Hurts" is a comfort song to help when times are bad and life seems unbearable. "Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on Everybody Hurts"
There are thoughts of strength, courage and endurance here. Strength to pick life up from the raw edge and press on, courage to face the problem head on and endurance not to give up even when you fail.
In the New Testament there are many Jesus encounters. Hurting broken people who encounter Jesus and his compassion for them in their life situation. In John 4 Jesus encounters a woman at a well. Nothing strange in that you might add. Except that everything within the passage shouts out that he should not be there. She is a Samaritan woman, (Samaritan's were hated by Jews. They were viewed as being a race of people to avoid) She was also a woman. Someone who was a non-person. She was also a "known" woman 5 husbands and the one she was now with was not her husband. Life had dealt her lots of blows. Jesus come along side - listens, comforts, and challenges. She has hidden her life, her hurts. She has dodged the taunts. The reason she turns up when the sun was at its highest was that no one else would be there. No other women who would lash out with their tongue would be there when the sun was at its highest. Read the text and see…
John 4:1-18
1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.
The story ends with the woman going into the village with good news "Come and see a man" He hurts have been heard and healing has begun. "Everybody Hurts" but there is someone who will listen. Jesus is only a prayer away.
Paul in one of his letters encourages us not to give up on life but to press on for the prize.
Philippians 3:13-15
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
In the words of the old hymn WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS "Jesus knows our every weakness, take it to the Lord in prayer" Just like the woman in the story Jesus is waiting for hurting people to confide in him. One prayer away.