by RICH ARITHMETIC
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this post originally appeared on the 1980’s Cassette Culture Blog, September 18, 2025
The Big Blue Boy Scout Over the Years
I have to confess — I love Superman, whom I first discovered in the 1950’s as a child watching The Adventures of Superman TV show and collecting his DC-published comic books. And though I basically ditched DC Comics and their super heroes (Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash) when I discovered the more “adult” Marvel Comics at age 11 in 1963, I’ve continued to have a soft spot in my heart for my First Love, Superman.
And in the summer of 2025 when we were celebrating the latest and newest movie iteration of the Big Super-Powered Boy Scout from Krypton, it seemed a good time for me to revisit an obscure single from 1969 by a Texas band you may not have heard of, The Clique.
And little-known though The Clique may have been outside of Texas, in 1969 the band recorded a very catchy song that had all the ingredients of “Hit Single” written all over it. More’s the pity that it didn’t catch on nationwide. But here it is as their regional fans knew it — The Clique’s recording of Superman.
Despite the failure of Superman to catch across the country when it was originally released, the song was not altogether forgotten. Among those who did remember that little slice of sunshine pop (which, admittedly, has a rather creepy stalker undertone) was an up-and-rising band in the 1980’s, R.E.M. In fact, many of you might actually recognize Superman because of their identical version it that was included as an unnamed bonus track on R.E.M.’s fourth album, Lifes Rich Pageant (1986). It was the first time R.E.M. had included a cover version on any of their albums, but it gave new life to the previously obscure song and is now more widely known than it was than when the song originally appeared.