Michael Stipe on how and why he struggled to write ‘Man On The Moon’
By the time of the release of their 1992 album, Automatic for the People, REM were ten years into their career. From the beginning, critics were struck by the band’s distinctive qualities. Their music was highly accessible and melodic, but it wasn’t pop. Lyrically, REM favoured cryptic, high-brow lyrics anchored to deceptively adventurous compositions. After seven albums, they were well-established on the charts despite never really being a singles band. Over the previous decade, the group had matured both musically and personally. In the early 1990s, they were primed for something special.
Consistently hailed as their best work, Automatic also contained one of their greatest songs: ‘Man on the Moon’. As lead singer Michael Stipe reveals, the birth of that song was laborious. The second single from its parent album, the track’s lyrics were penned by Stipe independently of the music, which is credited to guitarist Peter Buck and drummer Bill Berry. The song pays tribute to the singular talent of comedian and actor Andy Kaufman. Tragically short-lived, Kaufman had much in common with REM. Like the band, he was determined to chart his own path, with commercial success seen as a bonus, not an aim in itself.
Kaufman was a comic who didn’t tell jokes, instead weaving his entire life and career into one encompassing cosmic jest. A perennial trickster, often mystifying, always captivating, he made an ideal subject for an REM song. Throughout its five-minute run-time, Stipe playfully references Kaufman’s mock wrestling, acting, Elvis impersonation, and other colourful moments from the comic’s life and work. The results are mercurial, but the process was far from easy. So difficult was the lyric’s genesis that it nearly ended up an instrumental.
“I just couldn’t write it. I thought the song was complete,” says Stipe. At that point, the group were in the final stages of recording at Bad Animals Studio in Seattle. The rest of the band were insistent that lyrics were needed for the track. An exasperated Stipe took himself out of the studio. Plugged into a Sony Walkman, he took a long stroll around Seattle. For whatever reason, Andy Kaufman drifted into Stipe’s thoughts. He soon had a full song worked up.
Returning to Bad Animals, the vocal track was completed that night and sent out the next day to be mastered. As the singer says: “It turned out it was a quite beautiful song.” Stipe and Kaufman made for a perfect pair. “He became my Hero With A Thousand Faces,” Stipe reflects. Kaufman provided a creative spark which set grand ideas spiralling. It set Stipe to ponder larger-than-life questions. “Literally larger-than-life,” he recalls, “About existence and about what happens after we’re gone, and did the man really walk on the moon?”
From there came the song’s title – a reference to enduring conspiracy theories about the moon landings.” Although the idea that the ground-breaking mission was faked has been thoroughly debunked, it’s a notion which would surely have tickled Kaufman. As such, the title fits like a glove.
‘Man on the Moon’ reached number 18 on the UK singles chart and number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its parent album reached number one and number two in the UK and US, respectively. Seven years later, the song lent its name to a film biopic of Andy Kaufman. Directed by Miloš Forman and starring Jim Carrey as the enigmatic comedian, the film’s surreal and warm-hearted tone matches Kaufman’s persona. REM’s ‘Man on the Moon’ makes for the consummate audio accompaniment.
