1988Released
3:51

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Orange Crush - Remastered 2013. By Songfacts®.

Orange Crush was an orange flavored soft drink. In this case, though, it was meant to refer to Agent Orange, a chemical used by the US to defoliate the Vietnamese jungle during the Vietnam War. US military personnel exposed to it developed cancer years later and some of their children had birth defects. The extreme lyrical dissonance in the song meant that most people completely misinterpreted the song, including Top Of The Pops host Simon Parkin, who remarked on camera after R.E.M. performed the song on the British TV show, "Mmm, great on a summer's day. That's Orange Crush."

The song does not refer to any single Vietnam-related experience for lead singer Michael Stipe, but simply that he lived in that era of American history. He wrote in Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011: "[The song is] a composite and fictional narrative in the first person, drawn from different stories I heard growing up around Army bases. This song is about the Vietnam War and the impact on soldiers returning to a country that wrongly blamed them for the war." Stipe's father served in Vietnam in the helicopter corps.

Stipe sometimes introduced this in concert by singing the US Army jingle, "Be all that you can be, in the Army."

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Orange Crush - Remastered 2013.
AKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
121BPM

Album

The album Orange Crush - Remastered 2013 is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Orange Crush - Remastered 2013.
Concord Records
© 2013 R.E.M./Athens L.L.C. Under exclusive license to Concord Music Group, Inc., under exclusive license to Concord Music Group, Inc.
℗ 2013 R.E.M./Athens L.L.C. Under exclusive license to Concord Music Group, Inc., under exclusive license to Concord Music Group, Inc.

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