2. R.E.M. - Automatic for the People

There's a trend in my early taste in music and yes, it involves my sister who is 6 years my senior.  Cassettes were borrowed, or claimed, and CDs were sometimes given.  When she went to graduate school I remember her giving me a mixed tape of local bands from Texas, plus some other tunes she thought I would like.  I did, and sadly, I might've lost that mixed tape.  But once she gave me Automatic for the People when she learned I liked R.E.M.   So the album starts with "Drive" which again harkened to my junior high desire to be just a little different while at the same time wanting to be accepted into all the little social cliques.  Stipe sings in a low voice that almost whispers, not softly or dramatic, but in a laid-back nonchalant attitude: This is life.  And it is not the lyrics that drew me in but the stroll of the song.

"The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight":  I distinctly remember driving down Highway 51 and entering Madison on my way to school one morning, listening to this song on a CD player hooked up to my car stereo with a cassette dummy player.  I also remember playing this song over and over while working on homework, getting distracted, wishing someone would call me, and writing poems that mimicked the song.  R.E.M. lyrics resonated in my sleep and woke me up to scribble some ideas I thought were so very important, wise, but then later I would read them and wonder what was I trying to explain?  I like the randomness of images this song produces, as if there's some kind of desparation to explain feelings to who he waits to receive a call from.

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

Of course people remember "Everybody Hurts" and its music video of a traffic jam, people in their isolated pain, and for many the song is depressing.  I never felt that way personally because when I felt low-down and sad, wallowing in my own isolated pain brought on by social awkwardness, a break-up or listening to people fight, I would play the song and find some solace in the lyrics:

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.

It took a while, but "Sweetness Follows" found a way to settle into my blood and bond of family and friends even when I felt that relationships weren't working out, that people weren't communicating, that I felt lost when others were finding the creek path in the woods.

It’s these little things, they can pull you under.
Live your life filled with joy and thunder.
Yeah, yeah we were altogether
Lost in our little lives.

"Ignoreland" is a rockin' song with an energetic beat, Stipe singing in a rhythmic way emphasizing the words and following them as the music moves faster.  A song that always made me, and still makes me, move around in my chair to the shifting movement from chorus to verse to chorus that sounds almost like an auctioneer.  And the song deals with history, social, and political issues in a sporadic sense, a little vague, but insistently pointing out that it's a country that seems to ignore its problems.

The information nation took their clues from all the sound-bite gluttons.
Nineteen eighty, eighty-four, eighty-eight, ninety-two too, too.
How to be what you can be, jump jam junking your energies.
How to walk in dignity with throw-up on your shoes
They amplified the autumn, Nineteen seventy-nine.
Calculate the capital, up the republic my skinny ass.
T.V. tells a million lies. The paper’s terrified to report
Anything that isn’t handed on a presidential spoon,
I’m just profoundly frustrated by all this. So, fuck you, man. (Fuck ‘m)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ignoreland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ignoreland.

Yeah, I was a "Man on the Moon" addict.  Yeah, I loved the song and all it's references to people I had not heard of before.  I didn't know who Andy Kaufman was when I was in junior high or early on in high school.  I'd think I should look him up, but then forget and got about doing other things.  But I liked how the song moved from verse to chorus, asking Andy if he'd heard about this and then mention Elvis Presley by impersonating his voice.  It is a catchy song.

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 you having fun?
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.

A piano pulls at my heart, so one introducing "Nightswimming" kicked my heart into gear, and it continues on to sound like waves in a river or creek, moonlight on the water and a couple of people swimming, intimate, private and alone.  There's something about having a place of your own, an activity you spend time in with yourself and experiencing the world around you without distractions and without another's influence, and then maybe share in it.  Later it becomes a memory, one to revisit if only you could.  And I think R.E.M. represents with all its albums throughout my high school and college career, the songs piecing together the people and events, the places and feelings into a tapestry of cluttered phrases, catchy lines, postcard memories.

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.

Also, visit the Wikipedia articles on Automatic for the People and R.E.M., in addition to the band’s website.