E-Bow the Letter

"E-Bow the Letter"
Single by R.E.M.
from the album New Adventures in Hi-Fi
B-side	"Tricycle" "Departure" "Wall of Death"
Released	August 19, 1996 (1996-08-19)
Studio	Bad Animals, Seattle, Washington
Genre	Folk rock avant-rock
Length	5:22
Label	Warner Bros.
Songwriter(s)	Bill Berry Peter Buck Mike Mills Michael Stipe
Producer(s)	Scott Litt R.E.M.
R.E.M. singles chronology
"Tongue" (1995) "E-Bow the Letter" (1996) "Bittersweet Me" (1996)
Music video
"E-Bow the Letter" on YouTube
Patti Smith singles chronology
"Summer Cannibals" (1996) "E-Bow the Letter" (1996) "1959" (1997)

"E-Bow the Letter" is the first single from American rock band R.E.M.'s 10th studio album, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996). It was released on August 19, 1996, several weeks before the album's release. During the same month, R.E.M. signed a then record-breaking five-album contract with Warner Bros. Records. The song features American singer-songwriter and "Godmother of Punk" Patti Smith performing backing vocals. Smith was cited as a major influence by band members Michael Stipe and Peter Buck, and she also provided backing vocals for "Blue", the closing track on the band's final studio album, Collapse into Now, in 2011.

Although the song peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart, the highest any R.E.M. song charted in the United Kingdom until "The Great Beyond" in 2000, the song fared less well in the United States, reaching only number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100. It became R.E.M.'s lowest-charting lead single since "Fall on Me" released from Lifes Rich Pageant in 1986, when the band was on a smaller record label, I.R.S. Records. Jem Cohen directed the song's music video, which features R.E.M. in Los Angeles and Smith in Prague.^[1]

Dedicated to the memory of actor and musician River Phoenix, a personal friend of Stipe's who died in 1993 from an opioid overdose, "E-Bow the Letter" received critical acclaim, although some reviewers noted that it was an unlikely song to be chosen as the album's lead single, especially due to its introspective content and "pessimistic nature." Meanwhile, other outlets praised the band's brave choice to use such a song as the first track from New Adventures in Hi-Fi.