Lyrics for (Don't Go Back To) Rockville as interpreted by xpankfrisst

(Don't Go Back To) Rockville Lyrics
Looking at your watch a third time
Waiting in the station for a bus
Going to a place that's far, so far away
And if that's not enough
Going where nobody says hello
They don't talk to anybody they don't know
You'll wind up in some factory
That's full time filth and nowhere left to go
Walk home to an empty house, sit around all by yourself
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You'll be coming back before too long

Don't go back to Rockville and waste another year

At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend
I don't care if you're not here with me
'Cause it's so much easier to handle
All my problems if I'm too far out to sea
But something better happen soon
Or it's gonna be too late to bring you back

It's not as though I really need you
If you were here I'd only bleed you
But everybody else in town only wants to bring you down
And that's not how it ought to be
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
You'll be coming back before too long

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  • 21 Comments
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BethOrton
07-11-2002

Rated 0 
nice song! REM is kickin like spanish chicken

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mumf
10-05-2002

Rated +1 
this song means everything to me. It says that it's easy to go home because that's where everything is easy. Your old friends, your old lover. Take the job your dad had, and never open up yourself up to the possibility of what else is out there. I wish I had listened to Michael's advice a little more.

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ZinbobDan
06-06-2003

Rated 0 
ever since i went to college, i've replaced "don't go back to rockville" w/ "don't go back to butler"...in honor of the shithole i once called home

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epp88
06-04-2004

Rated 0 
this song is about not going back to the old things that you used to know just because they are conforting. instead look forward because life is always changing and you have to change with it.

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MtterOFctItsAllDrk
10-10-2004

Rated 0 
This song is about a girl who was at their college, she was really hot, and rich, and lived in a city called Rockville, which was an great place to live. Nobody ever wanted her to go back. That's what I read anyway.

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TG73
10-16-2004

Rated 0 
The way I heard it, it was about Jefferson Holt leaving and going back to Rockville, MD and the song was kind of a silly goodbye song for him.

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Sparkle7
10-17-2004

Rated 0 
this song got me to like Americana
because I used to think any country-ish sounding song was ment for yahoos and country bumpkins!

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Bayoustorm
12-10-2004

Rated 0 
This song isn't about a girl, it's about Michael's "friend" who is caving in to pressure from his family about his lifesyle. (Homosexuality isn't very popular in the South)

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ZinbobDan
02-10-2005

Rated 0 
nah, mtter was closer to the version i remember...she got bad grades and her parents found out she was smoking weed and stuff, so they cut her off and financially forced her home (to rockville, md of course)

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ZinbobDan
02-10-2005

Rated 0 
o, and she was romantically involved w/ one of the band members...i think mike mills or bill berry, and i guess the song "annelise (time after time)" is about her as well...

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durandal1707
03-22-2005

Rated 0 
I grew up in Rockville, Maryland...funnily enough.
It is a waste here; the city is just another clone of suburban Washington D.C.
And unfortunately I live in the center of it until I finish school.

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SwagBag
07-28-2005

Rated 0 
Mike Mills wrote it, it IS about a girl who Mike had a crush on and i believe dated a few times ( Her name was Ingrid Schorr). Anyway she was moving out of Athens to Rockville, this was Mike's plea to her to stay

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algunmae
01-15-2006

Rated 0 
The band have remained fond of the song, and in recent performances Mike Mills has taken lead vocals instead of Michael Stipe - Wikipedia

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ebowtheletter
03-03-2006

Rated 0 
Mills version is better than the Stipe version. And for the idiot(s) who brought up that this song was about homosexuality, do a little research and you'd find out that Stipe didn't even write the song, as also mentioned. Nice try....

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Kyomara
08-31-2006

Rated 0 
I'm pretty sure it's

It's not as though I really need you
If you were here I'd only leave you

And if it ain't, it should be. Much better lyric.

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kierra
11-20-2006

Rated 0 
I can't believe people assume every R.E.M song is about Michael Stipe's sexuality. Anyway, the story I heard was that the song was written about a girl that Mike Mills the bass player was in love with and how she was leaving town to go back to where she came from and it was a plea for her to stay. I see other people have heard the same story. It was more a Mike Mills written song than a Stipe one. Stipe doesn't write all the lyrics just most of them. Sometimes Mills writes lyrics.

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yuio98
03-31-2007

Rated 0 
well i live in rockville and imabout to go off to college and this song hits me hard. but rockville isn't a shit hole by any means. and also it is not in the south. but rockville is a superfical typical suburban city but i do not belive it in anyway is a bad place to come back to espcially if ur family and friedns live here. but regardless this is a great song.

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soccerules2608
07-15-2007

Rated 0 
im from rockville, maryland...i really like the song partially because its about my town, and like all the other people who wrote a comment that are from rockville they know what im talking about! its just a suburb of d.c., definitly not a country town, in fact our neighbor town, Potomac, is one of the wealthiest towns on the east coast. and my school is ranked number 60 in the country, so yea...haha

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Chronic Town
08-18-2007

Rated 0 
This song is one of my all time favorite REM songs/ It has such a catchy early-REM jingle/ Of course it is about someone (probably) a chick who used to go to UGA in Athens and who was originally from Rockville (MD, I guess) and a plea to not go back from where she was from. Having moved around since college, I can relate to someone not wanting another to go back to their roots, despite their desire to return, just to keep them with you. This is exactly that song. I heard that Mike Mills was in love with some chick and didn't want her to go back to Rockville, MD. An awesome song, indeed.

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northeastnostalgia
12-05-2007

Rated 0 
This is a love song and the heartache that goes along with someone you care about very much going back home. The romance is over and things will never be the same. One of the most played songs on the alternitve/college circuit back then. It's truly a sad song and one of my all time favorites.

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Paperboy
09-18-2009

Rated 0 
Peter Buck produced an Uncle Tupelo album, "March 16–20, 1992", wich was released on Rockville Records. I always thought it would have been nice if the song were a reference to that. It isn't, of course, it was written years earlier. But it is one of my favourite R.E.M. songs, especially with Mills on vocals.

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