Michael Stipe debuts new unreleased song on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Performing at Colbert's Ed Sullivan Theatre home last night, Stipe teamed up with Louis Cato and The Great Big Joy Machine for the track. It marks the latest tease from his forthcoming solo album, which he said last month has “taken longer than I wanted”, citing writer's block and the pandemic as contributing to its delay.

Stipe has, however, been working on material in New York's Electric Lady Studios, a space he shares with Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, and Matty Healy.

Since R.E.M.'s hiatus in 2011, the 66-year-old artist has released four photography books and a handful of one-off songs. He co-wrote/performed "I Played the Fool", the main theme for the new Steve Carell-starring HBO series Rooster, for which he collabed with Andrew Watt, Josh Klinghoffer, and Travis Barker. And before that, he contributed a cover of "Sunday Morning" to I'll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to The Velvet Underground & Nico, released in 2021.

Watch the new song on Colbert below.