A song where the narrator (Ben Gibbard, most likely) reminisces about his former hero and his downfall to alcoholism, “60 & Punk” is heavily speculated to be about R.E.M. guitarist, Peter Buck.

1) The song is titled “60 & Punk” and Peter Buck is 61.

2) Gibbard played with Buck at his Todo’s Santos Music Festival in Mexico (2013, and 2016, respectively).

In the song, the narrator recalls:

I watched you stumbling around this dusty town
I heard your bottle talking way too loud
As the Federales tried to hunt you down

3) Gibbard would’ve been a teenager when R.E.M. were in their prime:

I used to watch you on the late night scene
The timely rescue of a metal teen

4) Buck was the lead guitarist of R.E.M.:

6 strings were strumming rhythm and lead

5) Gibbard met Buck in 1998, after a show at the Crocodile Café, in the bathroom:

When I met you I was 22
Trying so hard to play it cool

6) Buck worked at Wuxtry Records in Athens, where he met Michael Stipe:

That kid that you used to be?
Broke and working in a record store

7) The narrator never specifically mentions punk music or punk rock. The only mention of the word “punk” is at the end:

There’s nothing elegant in being a drunk
It’s nothing righteous being 60 and a punk

This person’s music was probably the opposite of metal, and steered Gibbard in a different direction, based on the contextual usage of “timely rescue.”

8) Gibbard stated, in a recent interview, that he heard about how this person is now sober:

…But the silver lining for my relationship with this person is that they’ve been sober for some time and have certainly grown from the moments that are depicted in [the] song, which I’m very happy about.

Coincidentally, Peter Buck did an interview in May with KEXP, and spoke of his recent sobriety.