“Talk About the Passion” is the fourth song on R.E.M.’s debut album Murmur and its second single.

Michael Stipe has described the song as being about hunger, but its message was muddled in the popular view by lyrics that were seen by many as unclear. The music video attempted to right this by playing the song alongside footage of homeless people and warships, ending with the words “In 1987, the cost of one destroyer-class warship was 910 million dollars.”

However, take a bit of time to try and parse the lyrics and the message is rather plain to see. The “passion” is a semi-veiled reference to Christ’s suffering before crucifixion; the phrases “weight of the world” (salvation) and “empty prayers” leave little doubt of intent. Stipe is contrasting today’s suffering of the hungry with the Biblical suffering of Christ’s sacrifice to man while he simultaneously proposes that empty prayers (words without action) have no practical value, and all such is merely “talk”.