R.E.M.’s ‘Losing My Religion’ in major key might actually be even better than the original

'That's me in the corner...'

R.E.M’s 'Losing My Religion' is, to get a bit Patrick Bateman about it, one of the finest songs of the 1990’s.

It is beautiful and sad, and yet arguably even more melancholy when shifted to a major scale.

The digital reworking was done by MajorScaled back in 2013 but is being shared again this week, and unlike the usual jokey mash-ups, people are enthusing about how well it works.

Major key

Original

“The original song is in A minor, so in the middle section, when it goes to a chord rooted in the 6th scale degree, it goes into an F major chord,” the creators explained.

With its upbeat melody but downbeat lyrics, it’s kind of reminiscent of The Smith’s 'Girlfriend In A Coma'.

With the wonders of digital production and software like Melodyne it actually only takes a few clicks to do this to a song, and by this point it’s been done to a ton of songs, though often with less success…

@christophhooton