Nightswimming (1992)

"Nightswimming" is a song by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., released in July 1993 by Warner Bros. as the fifth single from the band's eighth album, Automatic for the People (1992). The song is a ballad featuring singer Michael Stipe accompanied only by bassist Mike Mills on piano, a string arrangement by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, and oboe by Deborah Workman in the latter part of the song. Mills wrote the music and Stipe the lyrics, but the song is credited to the entire band. Stipe sings about a group of friends who go skinny dipping at night, which draws from similar experiences in the band's early days. The accompanying music video for the song was directed by Jem Cohen.

Background and recording

Bassist Mike Mills recalled playing the song's piano riff at John Keane's studio in the band's hometown of Athens, Georgia; while Mills almost discarded the melody, it attracted the interest of singer Michael Stipe. Mills said, "I never thought it would amount to much because it was just a circular thing that kept going round and round and round. But it inspired Michael." While the song was not included on the band's subsequent album Out of Time, the demo recorded during those sessions was used for Automatic for the People, with a string arrangement by John Paul Jones added. According to Mills, his piano part was recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami, on the same piano used on "Layla" by Derek and the Dominos.

Guitarist Peter Buck recalled in 2003 that Stipe "listened [to the song] once, nodded his head to hear it again, and on the second pass he sang the lyrics. It was 'Nightswimming,' exactly like the record we would record a year later. I was standing in the corner, dumbfounded."

Composition and lyrics

According to Buck in 2003, "Nightswimming" was the only R.E.M. song for which the lyrics were written before the music. However, in a 2019 interview, Stipe stated that "E-Bow the Letter" was the only time this had happened.

The basic track of "Nightswimming" was performed by Stipe on vocals and Mills on piano. Buck noted that the absence of drummer Bill Berry and himself from the song was typical of many tracks on Automatic for the People, where one or more band members would not appear on a given song.

The inspiration for the lyrics has been debated by the band members. Stipe suggested an origin in a 2001 Esquire article: "A few years ago, I wanted to write a song about night watchmen, so I hired one to guard the R.E.M. offices in Athens. I bought him a uniform and a flashlight and everything. He turned out to be kind of crazy and called me up in the middle of the night to tell me dirty stories about the Kennedys. I wrote the song about him, but he was so paranoid he said he was going to sue me, so I changed the lyric from 'Night watchman' to 'Nightswimming.'"

Conversely, Mills said, "It's based on true events", explaining that in the early 1980s R.E.M. and its circle of friends would go skinny dipping after the Athens clubs closed at night. "We'd go to parties, we'd go to the clubs and we'd go to the Ball Pump, and there would be any number of these same 50 people, so it was a very tight circle of friends." Buck holds a similar interpretation. Stipe says the song is about a "kind of an innocence that's either kind of desperately clung onto or obviously lost," and that it is only partly autobiographical.

Release and reception

"Nightswimming" was released as a single on July 12, 1993, in the United Kingdom. It reached number 18 in Ireland and number 27 in the UK. In Australia, it was released on September 20, 1993, and reached number 71 on the ARIA Singles Chart.

Steven Hyden wrote for The A.V. Club that "Automatic for the People might be the most quietly serene rock record about loss ever made. There is no fear in this music; death is the album's main character, but he's presented as a vehicle for self-empowerment ("Try Not to Breathe"), immortality ("Man on the Moon"), and spiritual fulfillment ("Find the River"). On "Nightswimming", death returns to his home in the past, and memory is revealed as the last light emanating from a star that has burned out."