R.E.M. is obviously not a "sacred cow" around here, given that this is their second Hatesong, and so many people are chiming in above to agree with Mr. Kelly.

I don't recall anyone ever calling that line profound. Losing My Religion has great lyrics, though—not because of any one line.

If we're handing out lifetime passes, my first one goes to R.E.M.

I've never heard them at all, but I'd be pretty damn impressed if they've ever made an album as good as Out of Time—and that's like R.E.M.'s eighth-best album.

If you like Imitation of Life, you should go back a bit and try Driver 8. Or Shaking Through, Pilgrimage, Pretty Persuasion, 7 Chinese Bros., Cuyahoga, These Days, World Leader Pretend… I could do this all day.

Right, he should have couched his anti-teen-suicide song in enigmatic riddles.

Except this is the second time Hatesong has targeted R.E.M. Of course they would pick my favorite band.

"Shrill" can be fairly applied to this song, but not to their work as a whole.

Comparing latter-day Wes to latter-day Simpsons is so far off the mark, it almost offends me. Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom are great films. The latter might even be his best. (And Darjeeling is pretty awesome too.)

"It took me three hours to figure out F.U. meant Felix Unger!"

[holds hands to temples]

Graham Chapman would have been perfect for that, sadly.

My take on it is, well …. Splunge!

Aside from his staunch defense of Dads and gross misuse of the word "enervating," this was an excellent interview. Well done as always, Mr. Harris.

Yeah, it's like the denizens of Shelbyville are not even human to him—which is ironic, since his mother is from there.

KILL, BART.

I think it would be advisable if we could all just, you know, simmer down now.

Whoa, we've got a real hot mic here….

Your opinion seems to be prevailing around here, which surprises me. He usually made me laugh, at least on those occasions when he was trying to.

I sort of agree in principle, and yet I think Kaufman was pretty damn funny when he was NOT trying to be a provocateur—on Taxi, and on some of his more surrealistic SNL appearances. I feel the same way about Sacha Baron Cohen—I don't care for his overall schtick, yet I think he's a very funny comic actor.