I’m leaping over four albums now — Life’s Rich Pageant, Document, Green and Out of Time — to reach my second-favorite R.E.M. record, Automatic for the People.
The band was huge by this point. They had big hits with ‘The One I Love’ and ‘Stand’ but then reached new heights with the unexpected blockbuster ‘Losing My Religion.’ Who could have predicted that a song about loneliness and uncertainty driven by a mandolin riff would top the charts?
So there was a lot of interest in how R.E.M. would follow up the smash success of Out of Time, and what they did was release an instant classic.
Automatic for the People shares the somber tone of Fables of the Reconstruction but marries it with the higher production values their success afforded them. Many of the songs have an otherworldly elegance (one major exception is ‘Ignoreland,’ a political rocker that breaks the mood and drops this album a notch below Fables in my book).
Most elegant of all is ‘Nightswimming,’ the piano ballad that anchors the album’s stellar four-song finishing suite (that also includes ‘Star Me Kitten,’ ‘Man on the Moon’ and ‘Find the River’). This is one of the few R.E.M. songs for which I’ve dared attempt analysis, and my conclusion is that it’s a metaphor for a time before AIDS.
On its face, it’s a pretty straight-forward look back at fun times skinny-dipping toward the end of summer, and it certainly works beautifully if you take it no further than that. But something about the melancholy tone suggests to me that it is a reflection on more than innocence lost. I also sense a strain of righteousness in lines such as “I’m not sure all these people understand” and “You, I cannot judge” that hints at deeper meaning.
No matter what it’s about, this is definitely one of the most beautiful songs in R.E.M.’s catalog and the highlight of one of my favorite albums.
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.
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.
Nightswimming, remembering that night.
September’s coming soon.
I’m pining for the moon.
And what if there were two
Side by side in orbit
Around the fairest sun?
That bright, tight forever drum
could not describe nightswimming.
You, I thought I knew you.
You I cannot judge.
You, I thought you knew me,
this one laughing quietly underneath my breath.
Nightswimming.
The photograph reflects,
every streetlight a reminder.
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night, deserves a quiet night.
Meet Me In Montauk 
I, too, have always thought this is a song about AIDS and the way it changed the world of a group of people forever. I always think of the film Longtime Companion when I listen to it, and the incredibly poignant image of all of those friends – dead and alive -greeting each other on the pier. Whew – powerful, powerful stuff.
This song, well, this song destroys me with its beauty. It is so outrageously lush and haunting I can’t stand the silence when it ends. Absolutely stunning.
i’ve never doubted that it was a song about AIDS, and it is certainly one of my favorites of all REM songs.
As for the album, as i said before, it rivals Pageant as best of their albims. And Ignoreland doesn’t detract for me, though I see where it would for you with its political references. I might actually give Automatic the nod over Pageant for at least 3 reasons (1) the diversification of the songs (2) the production quality and (3) the fact that REM could put out such a stunning album after the bar had been set so high from previous work, matching if not overcoming the bias we have spoken about toward the first love (introduction point) in discovering the band, which would have been Pageant for me.
Do you mean Life’s Rich Pageant or Fables of the Reconstruction? I thought the latter was your favorite (or second favorite). I’d probably list Pageant third after those two.
It’s not the political references that bother me in ‘Ignoreland’ (though name-checking the ’84 and ’88 elections certainly dates the song) so much as the tonal shift from the rest of the album. It’s a blunt rock song in the middle of a bunch of sadly majestic ballads.
Sorry, yes, I meant Fables.
As for Ignoreland, there is only so much “majestic ballads” I can take without a bit of tone shift. And it’s not as if Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite and Man on the Moon aren’t fairly up tempo (though not as outright rockin as Ignoreland). Ignoreland is one of those songs that took me aback (not necessarily in a good way) when I first heard it, but I have come to appreciaite it more over time (despite the dated references)