Editing Automatic for the People (section)

==Music and lyrics==
Despite R.E.M.'s initial desire to make an album of rocking, guitar-dominated songs after ''Out of Time'', music critic [[David Fricke]] noted that instead ''Automatic for the People'' "seems to move at an even more agonized crawl" than the band's previous release.<ref name="remote control" /> Peter Buck took the lead in suggesting the new direction for the album.<ref name="Buckley, p. 216" /> The album dealt with themes of loss and mourning inspired by "that sense of [...] turning 30", according to Buck. "The world that we'd been involved in had disappeared, the world of [[Hüsker Dü]] and [[The Replacements (band)|The Replacements]], all that had gone [...] We were just in a different place and that worked its way out musically and lyrically."<ref>Buckley, p. 218</ref> "Sweetness Follows", "Drive", and "Monty Got a Raw Deal" in particular expressed much darker themes than any of the band's previous material and "Try Not to Breathe" is about Stipe's grandmother dying.<ref name="exploder">{{Cite web |url=http://songexploder.net/rem |title=Episode&nbsp;125: R.E.M. |date=December 20, 2017 |work=Song Exploder}}</ref>

The songs "Drive", "[[The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite]]", "[[Everybody Hurts]]", and "Nightswimming" feature string arrangements by former [[Led Zeppelin]] bassist [[John Paul Jones (musician)|John Paul Jones]]. Of the fourteen classical musicians, eleven were members of the [[Atlanta Symphony Orchestra]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Duxbury |first=Janell R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2-wyCE21VEQC&dq=automatic+for+the+people+atlanta+symphony+orchestra&pg=PA344 |title=Rockin' the Classics and Classicizin' the Rock:: A Selectively Annotated Discography: Second Supplement |date=2001-02-05 |publisher=Xlibris Corporation |isbn=978-1-4628-0736-9 |pages=344 |language=en}}</ref> which had also been used on ''Out of Time''. Fricke stated that "ballads, in fact, define the record", and noted that the album featured only three "rockers": "[[Ignoreland]]", "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite", and "[[Man on the Moon (R.E.M. song)|Man on the Moon]]".<ref name="remote control" />

"It pretty much went according to plan," Litt reported. "Compared to ''[[Monster (R.E.M. album)|Monster]]'', it was a walk in the park. ''Out of Time'' had an orchestral arrangement—so, when we did ''Automatic'', judging where Michael was going with the words, we wanted to scale it down and make it more intimate."<ref name="auto">''[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]]'' #21, August 1995</ref>

"Song by song [...] the whole album is referencing the 1970s," recalls Stipe. "Everybody Hurts" was inspired by [[Nazareth (band)|Nazareth]]'s cover of "[[Love Hurts#Nazareth version|Love Hurts]]". "Drive" was an homage to [[David Essex]] and "[[Rock On (David Essex song)|Rock On]]", especially that song's early [[glam rock]] production style.<ref>{{cite podcast |url=https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/michael-stipe/ |title=Broken Record Podcast: Michael Stipe |website=Puskin.fm |publisher= |host=Rick Rubin |date=April 26, 2022 |access-date=May 15, 2022}}</ref>