Release date: 05/10/1992 | Length: 3:50 | Release: Automatic for the People | SuE: #46

These are the eyes that I want you to remember

Relentlessly morbid or beautifully free? That’s the dichotomy that lives in Automatic for the People, and more specifically Try Not to Breathe. Death is often a taboo subject, but the second song from their eighth LP busts open that myth and addresses mortality with a nakedness seldom seen in pop.

Arguing that the dulling of a once sharp mind is no price to pay for an extended life, the song sets out an emotive case for euthanasia. In this song, Stipe is singing from the perspective of his grandmother as she passes.

I will try not to breathe

This decision is mine

I have lived a full life

The unusual guitar tones comes from Peter Buck using a dulcimer guitar at the start followed up by sweeping, bending notes. His desire to explore other instruments was kicked off during Green, but really taken to new levels on Automatic for the People. Michael Stipe explained that the music here came to be a hybrid of Buck’s favourite styles: surf rock & spaghetti western, but ended up sounded almost nautical. The rocking of the rhythm has a metronomic tick to it, like a boat lulling in the ocean.

Bill Berry plays a big role in the song too. The song could easily have started with Buck, but Berry’s shaker and triangle tings make Try Not to Breathe instantly recognisable. He also makes a distinct contribution in the backing vocals, echoing “I have seen things you will never see” throughout the chorus in a distorted way that sounds like he’s dialling in his vocals from a distant submarine. Stipe said that this was actually akin to an old-timey radio like on The Buggles’ Video Killed the Radio Star, but with the aforementioned sea-shanty swing of the rhythm, the aquatic analogy will always triumph in my mind.

Try Not to Breathe ticks so many boxes of what makes an R.E.M. song great. There’s vocal contributions from Mike Mills, sounding like a spirit floating off into the ether as he follows Stipe in the chorus. Stipe himself seems to dictate the rhythm of the song, curtailing verses and shifting refrains as he sees fit. And above all else, the song sounds quintessentially R.E.M., despite sounding like nothing else in their back catalogue.

Release date: 21/11/92 | Length: 5:14 | Release: Automatic for the People | SuE: #17 | UK: #18; US: #30

Now Andy did you hear about this one

Tell me are you locked in the punch

Opening one of the greatest closing triplets of any album, let alone R.E.M.’s discography, Man on the Moon showcases a slightly lighter side to the band in comparison to what haunts a lot of Automatic for the People. Unlike so much of the group’s work that requires reading between the lines, this single was partly biographical, focusing on the perplexing comedian Andy Kaufman. This is not the first time that Kaufman would be linked to R.E.M., as the band soundtracked Miloš Forman’s 1999 film of the same name, most notably with the song The Great Beyond.

Kaufman wasn’t the sort of man to simply tell gags, but to entertain the audience with his peculiar brand, including his Elvis Presley impersonations, referenced by Michael Stipe with an additional impression by the frontman himself: “Hey baby”. Whilst his more mainstream highlights included stints on Saturday Night Live and Taxi, his adventures also led him into wrestling, hence the double entendre “Tell me are you locked in the punch”. Seeing as how his act would go well beyond the usual realms of comedy and into alienation, it was considered by many that what he was doing was not a joke, but just playing himself.

The tendency for Kaufman to goof around and constantly deliver the unexpected meant that upon his untimely death at the age of 35 in 1984, many believed his passing to be an elaborate hoax and yet another joke, and that’s where the title of the song comes into play, drawing comparisons to those who deny the moon landings: “If you believe, they put a man on the moon”. Whilst the song comes in no way close to advocating these conspiracies, there is a little deliberation with the fantasy and romanticism of believing that there is more than meets the eye, even going so far as to reel off a list of now accepted theories that were originally scoffed at: “Mister Charles Darwin had the gall to ask”.

Musically the song has a country tinge to it, opening with its iconic bassline before the guitars slide around. It’s very pleasant, but doesn’t show off on a song where the vivid lyrics take centre stage. The demo (titled C To D Slide 13 on the expanded version of the album) uses Peter Buck’s favourite toy, a mandolin, as the main riff in close harmony with the bass, highly reminiscent of Hairshirt from Green. It’s second nature just to accept Michael Stipe’s “yeah”s as melody, but it was actually a wry nod to friend Kurt Cobain’s habit of inserting a multitude of them in Nirvana songs, specifically in response to Lithium.

Man on the Moon also has the honour of being the last song ever performed by the band, in Mexico City at their final gig in 2008. I recall reading somewhere that they were fully aware that this would be their final ever performance, three years before their dissolution, and exchanged sly glances to one another to say “yep, this is it”. There’s an energy to it that might only be explained with this knowledge in retrospect, especially when Stipe declares “we are R.E.M. and this is what we do”. Bowing out on It’s the End of the World as We Know It would’ve been too cheap. This coda was far more dignifying.