R.E.M. - Perfect Circle
Automatic For The People
AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE (1992)
DRIVE
"The only thing to do is not pay attention to it." So declared Peter Buck, faced with the news that the ten million copies sold by the end of '92, "lined up end to end, would cover the distance between Athens and Atlanta", as his brother had pointed out to him.
R.E.M., in short, remained R.E.M. through and through. They could never become America's answer to U2, as Warner had dreamed. So, instead of capitalizing on the worldwide triumph of "Out Of Time", they decided not to play live for the whole of 1991 - though they would still allow themselves a handful of select appearances, especially on TV.
Intransigence, after all, had to pay some toll to compromise. So, after years spent defying MTV and the commercial logic of the video clip, Stipe and co. found themselves with the most-played video in America ("Losing My Religion"), and after taking aim at multinational corporations with their environmental campaigns, they had to come to terms with the commercial demands of one of the most powerful major labels in the world.
Balanced on a thin edge, R.E.M. swept up awards at the MTV Music Awards, yet refused to perform and collected their trophies wearing loud T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like "Rainforests", "Love knows no color" and "Hand Gun Control", as if to underline, whatever the occasion, just how different they were.
The four of them, in short, hardly seemed cut out to become stars. Buck, in the throes of a painful marital crisis, repeatedly showed his reluctance towards the rituals of showbiz, as when he turned up to the Grammy Awards in green pajamas, later revealing he'd only gone to the ceremony to make his mother happy. Berry began showing signs of restlessness, spending far more time fishing and playing golf than in the studio, where the sessions to plan out every last detail grew ever more nerve-wracking. Mills got by on irony and came across as the most approachable to fans, though he certainly lacked the rockstar's physique du rôle. But more than anyone, it was Michael Stipe who seemed unable to withstand the pressure. Increasingly introverted, moody and withdrawn into his role as the "misunderstood one", the R.E.M. singer appeared transformed even physically: thinning hair, gaunt and painfully thin. Adding up his sexual orientation with his campaigning on behalf of AIDS sufferers, many fuelled rumours of his supposed HIV-positive status or illness, in some cases even writing him off as dying. And he did nothing to deny it, retreating into a rigorous silence that would last at least two years. Perhaps it was simply a way of keeping media attention fixed on a cause he cared about deeply. "The White House Stop AIDS" was the slogan emblazoned on his T-shirt at the 1992 Grammys. Freddie Mercury had died a few months earlier.
The fact remains that, despite its playful title - inspired by the slogan of an Athens soul food restaurant - "Automatic For The People" is decidedly the most brooding and funereal album the Georgia band ever made. The retreat into ballad form is now complete, in a kind of ideal continuation of the previous album. But this time there are no shiny happy people around to clear the mind. Because themes like pain, memory and death are scattered liberally throughout lyrics that had never sounded so dark and introverted. An almost chamber-like austerity merges with solemn orchestral arrangements, courtesy of John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin and Knox Chandler of the Psychedelic Furs. So, whereas in the past their records had almost always opened with punchy, energetic songs, this time the register shifts abruptly, into the spectral clarity of the arpeggios of "Drive". A single orchestral guitar line destined to become legendary, born as a tribute to Brian May of Queen: "It's a Les Paul plugged into a big Marshall, overdubbed six times and played with a coin", Buck would explain. Around that trick unfolds a spare, moving litany, which Stipe delivers with fatalistic conviction, refracted through echo, before a furious electric guitar and a melodramatic string section take over.
"Drive" is the archetype of this new R.E.M. sound: predominantly acoustic, subdued, almost never uptempo. The title is paradoxical, suggesting movement in a song that instead circles in on itself, remaining essentially static. The video is also highly significant, with Stipe stage-diving into the pleading hands of a tightly packed crowd, like a single body: a vivid representation of the new relationship between the pop icon and his audience.
The lyrics, on the other hand, prove rather eccentric compared to the album's central themes: Stipe issues a fresh exhortation to the kids not to be fooled by politicians, while painting a far from idyllic picture of youth conditions, caught between drugs and decay.
Smack, crack, bushwhacked
Tie another one to the racks, baby
Hey kids, rock and roll
Nobody tells you where to go, baby
What if I ride? What if you walk?
What if you rock around the clock?
Tick-tock. Tick-tock
What if you did? What if you walk?
What if you tried to get off, baby?
Hey, kids, where are you?
Nobody tells you what to do, baby
Hey kids, shake a leg
Maybe you’re crazy in the head, baby
Lyrics that once again turn rather disjointed and enigmatic, with an ironic nod to "Rock On," David Essex's glam rock anthem, plus onomatopoeic assonances and wordplay, such as "bushwhacked," which means to be ambushed or caught off guard, but here refers to the pitfalls of the Bush era: "Stipe says: don't get bushwhacked" was the message the singer had released on the eve of the election that Dukakis went on to lose in 1988. Three years later, the line would instead serve as a kind of lucky omen for Bill Clinton's triumph, which brought the Democrats back to the White House after 12 years. The Times They Are a-Changin'.
TRY NOT TO BREATHE
A held breath. An attempt, perhaps, to imagine what death will be like. "Try Not To Breathe" introduces one of the album's central themes, through the heartfelt spiritual testament of an old man preparing for the end, aware of having lived through an era, with a single wish: to be remembered.
I will try not to breathe
I can hold my head still with my hands at my knees
These eyes are the eyes of the old, shiver and fold
I will try not to breathe
This decision is mine. I have lived a full life
And these are the eyes that I want you to remember. Oh
The serenity is that of someone reaching the end of the line after a long road, aware of having "lived a full life" and now wishing not to be a burden any longer. Yet one last shiver remains to be faced: one must hold one's breath, to overcome the anguish that precedes the final sinking. With the hope of memory, as an ideal bridge between this world and the next.
I need something to fly over my grave again
I need something to breathe
I will try not to burden you
I can hold these inside. I will hold my breath
Until all these shivers subside
Just look in my eyes
I will try not to worry you
I have seen things that you will never see
Leave it to memory me. I shudder to breathe
A contrite meditation, waltz-timed, built on new, superb vocal harmonies from the Stipe-Mills axis, with Buck unfurling one of his most moving acoustic arrangements, barely rippled by feedback in the bridge and a distant, distorted voice, with a solemn organ line sealing the ending. It's hard to imagine — as some have suggested — a direct reference to the story of Dr. Death, Jack Kevorkian, the fierce champion of euthanasia. The lyrics instead suggest a broader reflection on mortality and memory, through a portrait of twilight senility.
But if the song's theme is "metaphysical", the origin of the title is far more prosaic: during the recording sessions, Buck had in fact been scolded by sound engineer John Keane for holding the guitar's microphone too close to his mouth. "Ok, I'll try not to breathe," was his reply.
THE SIDEWINDER SLEEPS TONITE
After that breathtaking abyss of melancholy, Stipe resurfaces from the darkness and rediscovers a lost radiance. At least with this euphoric yodel-driven interlude, whose title riffs on the African-born evergreen "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", made famous by the Tokens in the Sixties. The reference lingers in the opening line too, with a snake standing in for the lion, though set against a decidedly different backdrop. The story's protagonist, in fact, is a homeless man who "sleeps curled up", just like a snake (though the allusion could also be to a coiled telephone cord).
This here is the place I will be staying
There isn’t a number. You can call the pay phone
Let it ring a long, long, long, long time
If I don't pick up, hang up, call back, let it ring some more
If I don’t pick up, pick up… The sidewinder sleeps, sleeps, sleeps in a coil
Call me if you try to wake her up. Call me if you try to wake her
After "Talk About The Passion", another snapshot of lives on the margins, though with a much more lighthearted tone. Almost delirious, in fact. As Buckley recalls, the chorus ("Call me if you try to wake her up") "was deliberately written by Stipe to be unintelligible, and with its nine syllables crammed into seven beats, it echoes the ravings of a madman". Amid a festive, nursery-rhyme atmosphere driven by strings, swinging organ and backing vocals, the sidewinder sends soup packets back where they came from ("Baby, instant soup doesn't really grab me"), demanding something "more substantial" ("I need something more substantial"). A bizarre mix of requests blending fantasy and reality.
A can of beans or blackeyed peas, some Nescafe and ice
A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of Doctor Seuss
The snake is also a symbol of death, as well as sin, but here Stipe prefers to play with biting, pointed lyrics, steering clear of any rhetoric and sifting once again through childhood memories: Dr. Seuss is of course a well-known children's author, who created characters like the Grinch and The Cat in the Hat (referenced in the song's next verse), and who will soon be portrayed on the big screen by Johnny Depp in a dedicated biopic.
EVERYBODY HURTS
But the party ends abruptly. Because with "Everybody Hurts" the album retreats once more into introspective narratives of pain and desolation. The frail triplets of the electric piano support a sturdy melody, sung by Stipe with a soulman's conviction and the searing power of a funeral lament, building to a peak of pathos with the sudden entrance of strings and electric guitar. Yet the lyrics let a message of hope shine through, an invitation not to give up in the face of suffering and despair that can sometimes push someone to the brink. Because the night doesn't last forever. "My sister is a teacher, and a 15-year-old girl she knew had attempted suicide", Stipe would explain to Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times, revealing the autobiographical spark behind the lyrics. A spirit that - as Buckley notes - echoes that of "Don't Give Up", the famous 1986 duet between Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, but which also brings to mind - however consciously - another famous suicide in rock history, the one staged by Ziggy Stardust in "Rock'n'Roll Suicide". "Just turn on with me, and you're not alone", and "gimme your hands, 'cause you're wonderful", sang Bowie. "No, no, no, you're not alone", Stipe echoes back. But the grandeur of that glam anthem is tempered here into an almost chamber-music austerity. All the pain in the world condensed into a few, utterly simple lines.
When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on
Don’t let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes
[…]
Everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you’re alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
Lyrics of disarming simplicity by early-Stipe standards, paired with music that had never been so sugary, running through every convention of melodic pop filtered through the classic R.E.M. aesthetic. It will work, despite the pitfalls. "I'm not afraid to express my emotions, but every now and then you risk coming across as insipid or mawkish", Stipe admits to Paul Zollo. "I don't like being whiny in songs. And I don't like being misread. For instance, 'Everybody Hurts' was quite a coup, because it could so easily have been seen as pathetic, saccharine, mopey and silly, but for some reason most people don't seem to see it that way".
SWEETNESS FOLLOWS
Another heartfelt requiem, in the form of “an old blues with strange jazz chords stuck in the middle,” as Buck put it. After the brooding theme of “New Orleans Instrumental No. 1,” “Sweetness Follows” sharpens the intensity, scarring the central melody with guitar feedback and the scrapes of a distorted cello (courtesy of Chandler), while the pump organ marches on solemnly.
The theme of death returns, but this time from the perspective of loss for those left behind. The story of a son having to bury his parents becomes a starting point for reflecting on memory and the risk of losing all feeling.
Readying to bury your father and your mother
What did you think when you lost another?
I used to wonder why did you bother
Distanced from one, blind to the other?
Listen here my sister and my brother
What would you care if you lost the other?
I always wonder why did we bother
Distanced from one, deaf to the other
Oh, oh, but sweetness follows
Once again, then, the exhortation is to free ourselves of the cynicism and indifference that make us “distant”, “blind” and “deaf”, even within a family unit. An invitation to recover the fullness of our affections. The loss of a loved one can thus become the chance to rediscover, to quote Francesco De Gregori, that sweetness we're all entitled to.
“Sweetness Follows” might seem like a minor moment on the album, but it actually reveals itself as one of its most representative tracks, since it fully embodies its spirit: spectral and mournful, yet held together by a thread of hope.
MONTY GOT A RAW DEAL
The first (and less famous) of the two cinematic tributes on the album. “Monty” is the affectionate nickname for Montgomery Clift, the celebrated American actor, “beautiful and damned”, of the 1950s, already namechecked by the Clash on the album “London Calling”. A figure who, in Stipe's eyes, embodies fame and myth, but also the squandering of success amid alcohol and drugs, as well as another victim of the McCarthyism already denounced in “Exhuming McCarthy”. His fate was sealed, and in the end things went wrong for him: “Monty Got A Raw Deal”. What emerges is a vignette that starts out composed and austere, with Buck's classically arpeggiated intro, before drifting into exotic shades with the Eastern-tinged refrain and the disorienting embroidery of a bouzouki.
As on “Man On The Moon”, the narrative device is a kind of imaginary dialogue with the song's subject.
Monty, this seems strange to me
The movies had that movie thing
But nonsense has a welcome ring
And heroes don’t come easy
Now, nonsense isn’t new to me
I know my head, I know my feet
But mischief knocked me in the knees
Beyond the tribute, an empathy seeps through that pushes toward identification. Ironically, Stipe switches to first person, admitting he knows the art of nonsense all too well and reiterating all the pitfalls of stardom. So the recollection of Monty's grim fate ("buried in the sand" and "strung up in a tree") is joined by a kind of (self?)warning not to be blinded by the will-o'-the-wisps of celebrity.
You don't owe me anything
You don’t want this sympathy [waste your breath]
Don't you waste your breath [waste your breath]
For the silver screen
No need for heroes, then, Stipe seems to suggest, underscoring once again his unease with the obligations of celebrity and with the public's obsessive, suffocating embrace — a public that R.E.M. kept growing, song after song.
IGNORELAND
The record's true foreign body. All the dormant rock fury suddenly reawakens for a raucous political invective against the Reagan-Bush Republican era, by then in its twilight. It's the only overtly political episode on the whole record (aside from the pun "bushwhacked" in "Drive"), and, tacked on at the last minute besides, it ends up feeling off-key. Too much fervor, too much recklessness in wanting to fire off every round with no metaphors left in the holster — complete with a distorted bassline that was meant to drive the track but instead got buried in the final mix.
The targets of the tirade weren't just the hated Republicans, but the American public itself, held hostage by television propaganda. Because of them, America had become "Ignoreland", the land of ignorance.
These bastards stole their power from the victims of the Us v. Them years
Wrecking all things virtuous and true
The undermining social democratic downhill slide into abysmal
Lost lamb off the precipice into the trickle down runoff pool
According to Stipe, Reagan and Bush exploited the Cold War to hold onto power, favoring corruption and the interests of big business. "Trickle down" is in fact a play on words evoking an old Republican economic policy, according to which increasing wealth among the upper classes would automatically trickle down to the poorest strata of the population.
A furious Stipe reels off all the election years (1980, '84, '88, '92), cursing "the sound-bite gluttons" who took the bait. For 1992, though, he'll turn out to be wrong...
More a cathartic outburst than a political anthem in the vein of "Cuyahoga" or "Begin The Begin", "Ignoreland" ends with a kind of self-defense.
I know that this is vitriol. No solution, spleen-venting
But I feel better having screamed. Don’t you?
But, justifications aside, it remains a track out of place within a tracklist it was never meant to be part of. In fact, the band itself will end up distancing themselves from it.
MAN ON THE MOON
After the eccentric jazz-flavored panel of perverse love that was "Star Me Kitten", here comes a new tribute. Its subject is a less famous figure than Montgomery Clift, but one who, thanks to this very song, would be rediscovered and reappraised, eventually inspiring the film of the same name, "Man On The Moon", directed by Milos Forman and starring a superb Jim Carrey, in which the R.E.M. song also serves as the soundtrack.
The man on the moon is Andy Kaufman, the brilliant and ill-fated comedian (though he preferred to call himself a song and dance man) of the Sixties, specializing in a deranged anti-humor with more than one point of contact with Michael Stipe's beloved nonsense. The Georgia band pays him an affectionate, dazed tribute, one that - as Milena Ferrante recalls - was born with the same unpredictability as Kaufman's own pranks: "Berry was just strumming a C chord on the guitar when, as he turned to grab a beer, his hand slipped down to the third fret. The others were so thrilled by it that the sequence was used for the verse".
The shimmering folk-rock of a few albums earlier is the ideal setting for a ballad that already sounds "classic" on first listen (and will remain so, becoming a live staple too), with its sly, swaying moves dancing between samba and calypso, Stipe's mischievously Elvis-like delivery, and Buck's soaring solo adding an extra touch of epic grandeur.
Elvis parody was itself a specialty of the misunderstood Kaufman, whose bewildering string of hits and flops is traced through the lyrics - not without a touch of bitter disillusionment about the "game of life" and its illusory truths.
Mott the Hoople and the game of Life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Andy Kaufman in the wrestling match. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Monopoly, Twenty one, checkers, and chess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Fred Blassie in a breakfast mess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let’s play Twister, let’s play Risk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
See you in heaven if you make the list. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Hey, Andy did you hear about this one? Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Hey Andy are you goofing on Elvis? Hey, baby. Are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon
If you believe there’s nothing up my sleeve, then nothing is cool
Aside from the mysterious presence of Mott The Hoople, the British cult band of the glam era made famous by the generational anthem "All The Young Dudes", penned by Bowie, the other references allude to real events in Kaufman's life, like his early Elvis parodies and his memorable wrestling saga: with Fred Blassie as his accomplice, he declared himself the first inter-gender champion in the ring, taking on a string of four hundred bouts (apparently real ones) against women between 1979 and 1983! In resurrecting the old theory that the moon landing was merely an urban legend, used as a propaganda weapon during the Cold War, Stipe instead seems intent on once again warning of the dangers of mystification, weaving a political issue into a song that's forever balanced between reality and nonsense, where new celebrities pop up in no particular order: Moses, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin...
A heartfelt, moving tribute all the same, one that would carry on through the years, as Stipe would go on to reaffirm the profound influence of Kaufman's non-humor on his own unconventional artistic vision.
NIGHTSWIMMING
Once upon a time, in Athens, there were four kids, a bunch of friends and rowdy nights out that ended with swims under the stars in the placid waters of Lake Ball Pump. "It was a few miles out of town, and we'd go there with a few friends to skinny-dip after the clubs closed. There was us, Paul Butchart, DeLoris, Love Tractor, and the girl 'Camera' was written about, Carol Levy. Between 1979 and 1981 there were only maybe 50 to 75 people who cared about this music at all. We'd go to parties, go to the clubs, and go to Ball Pump, where you'd always find some of those same 50 people." It was the Perfect Circle of youth and innocence. Before the specters of drugs and AIDS stretched over an entire generation.
In Mills's recollection, as recounted by Buckley, lies the essence of "Nightswimming," a suspended ballad of memory and longing.
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse
Still, it's so much clearer
I forgot my shirt at the water’s edge
The moon is low tonight
The opening scene is idyllic: the quiet night, lit only by scattered streetlamps, the barely rippled waters of the lake, and that old photo on the dashboard. But these are memories now yellowed by the wear of adulthood and all its fears. What does it cost to turn thirty and leave behind those days of freedom and carefree living? What's the price of a fame that has upended one's habits and way of life forever?
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
I'm not sure all these people understand
It's not like years ago
The fear of getting caught
Of recklessness and water
They cannot see me naked
These things, they go away
Replaced by everyday
A cyclical, descending piano line, reminiscent of the one in "Perfect Circle", is the backbone of a ballad made even more poignant by the hushed, quivering swell of the strings and by Stipe's heartfelt delivery. Written in 1990 under the title "Night Swim", it was meant to appear on "Out Of Time", but it found its true home among the dark, melancholy grooves of "Automatic For The People".
We want to remember them like this, the four friends from Athens: happy and excited, swimming in the lake under the moon, still unaware of the bright future awaiting them.
FIND THE RIVER
Almost a country serenade in the style of Fred Neil. Bare piano, a solemn choir, and the breath of the accordion lending it depth. The death of John Seawright, an Athens poet who died of a brain hemorrhage while the band was on tour, inspired an acoustic epitaph of quivering intensity. A hymn to beauty and to life, where the search for the river is yet another existential metaphor.
The river to the ocean goes
A fortune for the undertow
None of this is going my way
There is nothing left to throw
Of ginger, lemon, indigo
Coriander stem and rose of hay
Strength and courage overrides
The privileged and weary eyes
Of river poet search naivete
Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
All of this is coming your way
Once again, the suggestions of nature blend with memory and reflection. A stream of memories, colors, scents. It's the search for the infinite, that eternal yearning that drives every individual toward spiritual illumination. An inescapable path, like that of the river toward the Ocean.
The final recording is practically the demo version of the track. "We try to make verses that are as interesting as the choruses," Mills tells Buckley. "Even though we didn't have lyrics or melody yet, we wanted it to be just as compelling. I think that's why our songs have so much depth."
And indeed, that's precisely the secret of "Automatic For The People": songs meticulously crafted from a musical standpoint, already fully formed and vibrant even before acquiring lyrics and choruses. An album that, listening to it today, feels like a greatest hits, given how many classics it manages to pack into a single tracklist. And yet there was no chart-smashing hit like "Losing My Religion" or a sticky refrain like the one in "Shiny Happy People". The deliberately anti-commercial choice of a single like "Drive" reflected the Georgians' need to temper the euphoria of success with a deeper reflection on their identity. As Paul Evans wrote in Rolling Stone, "sadder and wiser now, the Athens subversives reveal a darker vision of reality, one that nonetheless shines with a new and complex beauty… An inner world made of memories, loss and longing".
A more sober, austere dimension, then, whose most faithful aesthetic transposition is found in Anton Corbijn's black-and-white photographs included in the booklet. But their audience had also matured, and understood. Despite selling in America almost half as many copies as "Out Of Time", the album immediately landed at No. 2 on the US charts, held off only by country giant Garth Brooks, and became a hit around the rest of the world too, topping the British charts and reaching the Top Ten across half of Europe, as well as in Canada and Australia. Critics crowned it as well. Rolling Stone awarded it the coveted five stars, while British magazines like Nme, Select and Vox blessed it with top marks. For Buck and Mills too, it remains the band's finest album ever. It's certainly their most cohesive and harmonious. To fail to recognize its centrality in R.E.M.'s great American novel is, more than shortsightedness, bad faith.
Ride the wave of great music
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07/05/2026
This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Claudio Fabretti, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.
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