How Automatic for the People changed my life

Since R.E.M.'s landmark album celebrated its 30th birthday last week, I decided to reflect on what the record and the band mean to me. [cw: depression]

It’s not easy being thirteen. As you embark on your one way trip to adulthood, you realise that somewhere along the way, you have set your rose coloured glasses down for the last time. And as you see your childhood waving goodbye to you from the gangplank, you also realise with sickening dread that you couldn’t turn the boat around even if you tried.

At thirteen years old, I was very depressed. Like any teenager, I had crushingly low self esteem, furthered by the fact that I wore glasses and had extremely crooked teeth courtesy of my dad’s British genes. I hated the way my body looked. I hated myself. Almost every other sentence out of my mouth was a self-deprecating joke, and even though cliques weren’t really an established thing at my high school, I viewed myself as a bona fide loser. 

I cried a lot. I often contemplated why I was so pathetic. I felt so, so lonely. Having spent the better part of my childhood attending a very white primary school in a very white part of Sydney, I felt alienated from my blonde-haired, blue-eyed peers. I felt too Asian to fit in with my white English family, yet too whitewashed to call myself Asian in any capacity. It didn’t help that my Thai family didn’t see me as ‘truly Thai’ either.

When I went to see the school counsellor, he remarked that I didn’t ‘look depressed’, suggesting the cure to my woes was a spot of exercise. I also told a classmate that I thought I had depression, and she shook her head, saying, “that can’t be right. You’re always so cheerful!”

For many years, I struggled with being dismissed and wondered if I was really depressed, or if I just had a typical case of teenage angst and all my episodes were attention seeking. It would take me years until I saw a therapist who finally diagnosed me with major depressive disorder.

High school was difficult for me in many ways. But my one saviour was music.

The first time I properly sat down and listened to R.E.M. was in my dad’s car, when he played Document for me. He would later also play me Lifes Rich Pageant. Up until then, I had subsisted on a diet of progressive and classic rock, but I was also beginning to make my first forays into new wave and post punk. R.E.M. were the first real alternative band I had given the time of day, and it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with them completely. 

I was drawn in by their lack of any front or fabricated image. From the start, they felt authentic and real, a band who cared about the music more than anything else. They wrote an eclectic array of songs, all of which were driven by strong melodies and jangly guitars. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t discern what Michael Stipe was saying. Their music reached out to me like a hand in the darkness. R.E.M. seemed to genuinely care about their fans, and for me, a lonely, depressed teenager, this was all I wanted.

The band became a lifeline of sorts. Rather than thinking about how sad I was, or getting caught up in my own self-loathing, I put all of my energy and time into exploring R.E.M.’s catalogue. I listened to every album obsessively. I watched countless interviews (it was like Christmas Day when I discovered the R.E.M. Video Archive), acquired a small collection of books on them, and noted down the band members’ music recommendations like it was gospel. It was thanks to them that I got into The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, The Replacements, The dBs, Let’s Active, and so many more artists. R.E.M. have been an influence on my life in more ways than I can imagine.

When I was thirteen, Automatic for the People was just shy of celebrating its 25th birthday. I’d become a fan in the middle of birthday celebrations for Out of Time instead, and I’d grown to take comfort in every R.E.M. record, from the jangle of Murmur to the harder-edged Monster. But for me, AFTP would end up being in a league of its own.

R.E.M.’s eighth studio album Automatic for the People was released on October 5, 1992. The album title is derived from the motto of Weaver D’s Delicious Fine Foods, an eatery found in the band’s native Athens, Georgia. Following the more acoustic themes of Out of Time, the album boasts string arrangements from John Paul Jones and was produced in collaboration with Scott Litt. Lauded by critics and the world, it’s often regarded as the band’s finest album, even by some of the members themselves. And I couldn’t agree more.

My dad once told me that he never particularly liked ‘Drive’ as the opening track on AFTP, arguing that it was too ‘minor-ish’. But I adore it. I think that its sparse, acoustic arrangement sets the tone for the whole record - this is going to be a darker one, maybe the group’s darkest one yet. It’s a song that builds, with strings that swell and an electric guitar that cuts. 

In my mind, ‘Drive’ conjures up visuals of a desolate environment. When Peter Buck’s guitar riff rips through the song just over two minutes in, it’s like a blazing fire that adds colour to a stark and bleak panorama. Yet paradoxically, listening to it makes me shiver every time. The initial mood of ‘Drive’ almost feels empty, numb - something that I felt innately in my depressed state. But then Jones’s strings and Buck’s guitar come in. They make the song soar, like cries of raw emotion that have finally fought their way to the surface. 

My depression often smothered the pain and heartache I felt with a suffocating blanket of numbness. But underneath it, I was hurting badly. To me, ‘Drive’ represents that sonically. Coupled with Michael Stipe’s lyrics, which feel like someone calling out or wandering in the darkness - “hey kids, where are you?” “What if I ride, what if I walk?” - the song instantly latched on to everything I was feeling at thirteen. Stipe’s words also ring with a sense of empowerment: “hey kids, rock n’ roll / nobody tells you where to go, baby.” At thirteen, crushed by insecurity and plagued by constant dismissals, it was something I needed to hear.

For me, AFTP sparks two different mental landscapes. One is the dark, barren environment that ‘Drive’ fits neatly into. But the other landscape is a much warmer picture. Scenes of being ensconced in a dimly lit room late at night whilst contemplating life, death, and the things in between. Sometimes, these two landscapes merge together, or they overlap. Songs can somehow have the darkness of the former, yet to me are still tinged with the soft orange-yellow glow of the latter. 

But when I listen to ‘Try Not To Breathe’ and ‘The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite’, all I can see is the warmth of that second scene. Those opening chords of ‘Try Not To Breathe’ envelop me like a blanket, shrouding me in comfort. Similarly, ‘Sidewinder’, with its upbeat melody, contrasts sharply against the more introspective tones of the album. You can hear Stipe laughing as he delivers one of the choruses, and it makes you smile. At least from a musical perspective, they feel like the happiest songs on the album.

Automatic for the People’s fourth track, ‘Everybody Hurts’, is one of the band’s most well-known and recognisable songs. It’s frequently associated with depression and mental health; three years after AFTP came out, the Samaritans launched a UK advertising campaign using solely lyrics from the song. Buck explained that “the reason the lyrics are so atypically straightforward is because it was aimed at teenagers.”

And maybe that’s why ‘Everybody Hurts’ meant so much to me as a depressed thirteen year old. In many ways, it felt like it was written for me. I know I’m not the only one to get something out of that song, but the lyrics felt like someone had reached into my chest, felt my pain, and decided to respond to it. 

I can recall many hours lying on my bed during this time where I didn’t have the energy to do much else. These hours were often accompanied by AFTP, and I often cried when ‘Everybody Hurts’ came on. R.E.M. meant so much to me and still do, and to have them reassure me that I wasn’t alone meant more to me than anyone else expressing the same sentiment. When Stipe sang “hold on” over and over as the song faded out, I tried to do just that. 

The music video also resonated deeply with me. People stuck in a traffic jam, struggling under the weight of thoughts that kept troubling them but were too afraid or reluctant to vocalise. I felt like all of them, carrying around this mental baggage that I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone about. I’d been shot down by so many people I couldn’t see the point in doing it anymore, which led me to bottle it up and let it eat away at me. At the end of the music video, when everyone gets out of their cars and starts walking, I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be free of the mental prison that I’d trapped myself in, but I didn’t know how. 

Nowadays, I don’t really listen to ‘Everybody Hurts’ anymore. I’m still coping with depression, and the song still means a lot to me, but I have to be in the right mood for it. I listened to it for the first time in a while recently whilst preparing to write this, and it dug up a lot of memories of being thirteen. There are lots of R.E.M. songs that mean the world to me, but I think a part of me has reserved ‘Everybody Hurts’ for that past version of myself. That song heard me and understood me when nothing else seemed to.

One of the things I love about AFTP is its use of space. The songs are embellished with strings and extra layers when it’s called for, but the band also let these tracks sprawl out and feel the empty space when they need to. ‘New Orleans Instrumental No. 1’, ‘Sweetness Follows’ and ‘Star Me Kitten’ do this particularly well. It especially suits ‘Sweetness Follows’, with its introspective tones and ruminations on mortality. Coupled together, these two elements elevate the album above other R.E.M. records for me.

Looking back on AFTP, many describe it as an album about mourning, loss, or nostalgia. Rolling Stone reviewer Paul Evans wrote that the album is R.E.M., but ‘grown sadder and wiser’. Indeed, by 1992, all four members were in their thirties and some of them had started families of their own. Consequently, it feels like there is a sense of both maturity and the aforementioned nostalgia permeating the record. Everyone is looking back, yet also considering what the future holds. Sometimes in doing so, these thoughts aren’t pleasant. Sometimes they’re painful. But the point is to sit with them anyway and let them wash over you. 

The last three songs on AFTP are - and I know this is some big talk - nothing short of perfection. Having them slotted back to back leaves you with a sense of warmth. It’s the warmth of nostalgia, yet also the warmth of looking forward with hope, and I believe they are three of the finest songs that R.E.M. have ever produced.

‘Man On The Moon’ needs no introduction. It’s another popular R.E.M. song that also featured prominently in the 1999 comedy-drama of the same name. But in my eyes, it’s always been one of my mum’s favourite songs. My mum is notoriously indifferent to music - she has said time and time again that she’s happy listening to whatever I want to listen to (the only occasion where she’s ever objected is when I played some early hardcore punk Replacements tunes and she couldn’t stand it). So to have her actually comment on a song and talk about how much she likes it is a rare occurrence, and it means a lot.

I think what makes ‘Man On The Moon’ so ripe with this warmth and comfort is its lighthearted tone. The lyrics are playful - “let’s play Twister, let’s play Risk” - and we get to hear Stipe’s Elvis impression. The ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’ refrain was Stipe’s attempt to outdo friend Kurt Cobain’s use of ‘yeahs’ in Nirvana lyrics, to the point where Stipe would count how many ‘yeahs’ he had included to ensure he’d beaten Cobain.

Even the music video carries a similar atmosphere. It depicts the members of R.E.M. either hitchhiking, driving a truck, shooting pool, or tending bar. At the bar, Stipe eats some fries and a handful of customers sing along when the song reaches its chorus. It’s a slice of life at a leisurely pace, unquestionably American and almost antithetical to the rock star image. Rather than the decadence and excess that was so commonplace at the time for stars of the band’s status, the promotional clip for ‘Man On The Moon’ makes them feel homely and down to earth, like old friends you’ve been meaning to catch up with.

Speaking of old friends, ‘Nightswimming’ is a song that drips with nostalgia and has secured itself as a perennial fan favourite. It’s not only one of my favourite R.E.M. songs of all time, but also a definite contender for the top spot. My dad loves it too. Another AFTP track that makes use of empty space and its simplicity, ‘Nightswimming’ features just Stipe on vocals and bassist Mike Mills playing a piano riff that circles round and round. It also includes small embellishments from Jones’s string arrangements and an oboe played by Deborah Workman. 

There are many beautiful songs on AFTP and in R.E.M.’s oeuvre, but for me, ‘Nightswimming’ is the most beautiful of them all. Filled with haunting imagery of old photographs, streetlights, and the night sky - “I’m pining for the moon / and what if there were two / side by side in orbit / around the fairest sun?” - its lyrics immediately evoke a deep seated yearning within the listener. A longing for the past, to be returned to a time you can never go back to. To see friends you haven’t seen in years. In ‘Nightswimming’, all of these tender emotions wash over the listener in one surging wave.

It’s generally maintained that ‘Nightswimming’ is about the band’s memories of skinny dipping with friends during the early 80s, after the clubs in Athens had closed at night. However, while Stipe concedes that there are autobiographical elements in the lyrics, he states that it is about a “kind of an innocence that's either kind of desperately clung onto or obviously lost.” 

Perhaps that’s why this song resonated so much with me when I was thirteen. It’s an age where the innocence of childhood slips away from you while you’ve got your back facing the other way. By the time you’ve turned around again, it’s gone and you’ve got to face the harsh realities of the world. Such a sudden shift often leads us to cling to our childhoods, or rather, the innocence that we were able to revel in at that age, in an attempt to hold onto whatever happiness we can still syphon from it. It’s why the commonly held interpretation that ‘Nightswimming’ is about looking back at distant memories works. It’s also why the song continues to endure - as humans, we never stop reminiscing about the past, harbouring conflicting feelings of longing and heartache for a nostalgic time that can never be visited again.

AFTP closes with the poignant ‘Find The River’. Its softly strummed guitar and vocal harmonies perfectly complement Stipe’s lyrics, which ring with a tentative hope. If there is a calm after the storm, this is it. I mentioned earlier that I would often listen to this album sprawled out on my bed, crying to myself. But after the tears, there comes a period of picking yourself back up again, even if you’re not fixed. ‘Find The River’ accompanies this with a gentle touch, a means of helping you stitch yourself back together after it feels like you’ve been ripped apart at the seams.

The song’s lyrics are peppered with nature visuals: rivers, flowers, “ocean storm, bayberry moon”. There is a sense of uncertainty that gradually blossoms into optimism: “nothing is going my way” turns into “all of this is coming your way”. AFTP has been an introspective journey that invites the listener to reflect on the past and themselves. Now, just like a river must continue to run its course, the listener must keep going. “I have got to leave to find my way,” sings Stipe. It’s time to look towards the future with renewed hope and passion, carving out a path for ourselves. The river keeps moving in spite of it all, and so should you.

2022 marks 30 years of Automatic for the People. Since first discovering R.E.M. and this album, I have gone on to discover so many different and exciting alternative groups from a similar time period. Many of their records have sparked a similar sense of comfort or passion. But AFTP will always be a little special to me. I can’t remember who said it, but I heard once that the bands you discover in your early teens will leave a mark on you like no other. It’s the first time you’re breaking out of your parents’ musical mould and exploring your own tastes. 

R.E.M. are definitely one of those bands for me, but I think they extend beyond just the status of being a band that helped to shape my musical tastes. They were a band that, for a moment in my life, meant the world to me. They were and continue to be a comfort: R.E.M. was the main artist I listened to when I was studying for the HSC last year and could feel my grip on sanity slowly slipping away. I still turn to AFTP now, especially when I’m feeling particularly depressed. 

Yet I think that most importantly, they were there for me at a time when nobody and nothing else was. When I was thirteen, I was constantly told I wasn’t depressed, didn’t look depressed, or wasn’t depressed enough to be categorised as such. The never-ending dismissals made me doubt myself. Adding that on top of trying to figure out who I was racially and culturally, my life felt unbearably lonely at the time. 

But R.E.M. were a constant. I could listen to them whenever I was going through an episode or whenever I felt unsure about myself. It didn’t matter if I was in the darkest headspace imaginable. Their music and AFTP told me that I wasn’t alone. That somebody was listening. And when I was thirteen, going through one of the most difficult periods of my life, it was all I needed to hear.