I noticed doing my Max Picks that I have never covered this song before by REM (I guess I’m giving this one away)…which really shocks me because it’s one of my favorites by them. This one is in my top three or four of REM songs. Its subject matter is no other than Mr. Andy Kaufman and that is probably the reason I like it so much. I’ve read a couple of books about Andy…what an interesting fellow. First a little about Andy.
Andy Kaufman covered the bases…Mighty Mouse, Foreign Man, wrestling women, Elvis Impersonator (I think the best), Tony Clifton, bongo player, Great Gatsby reader and generally pissing people off, boring them or making them laugh. He was a performance artist – a comedian who sometimes was uncomfortable to watch but great. He was not a joke comedian…not remotely close. He loved making the audience uncomfortable to the point of booing him at times. He ate all of that up. More than once he started to read The Great Gatsby…and he continued to read it until everyone left. Not one of his best routines but people noticed. After a show at Carnegie Hall, he took his entire audience out for milk and cookies with buses taking all the audience out.
I remember seeing him on a clip from the Tonight Show… as the very innocent childlike “foreign man” talking for a while and doing terrible celebrity impersonations and then suddenly shedding that character like a used coat and doing an Elvis impersonation…no, he WAS Elvis… I’ve read that Elvis said that Andy was his favorite impersonator but whether that is true or not I don’t know. He did do that show before Elvis died so it’s quite possible.
The song was originally titled ‘C to D Slide’ because that is the chord pattern that drummer Bill Berry had for it. Bill Berry came up with the melody and Peter Buck helped finish it off. Stipe came up with the lyrics as their back was against the wall to finish the album. It’s one of their most beloved songs. It was on the album Automatic for the People.
One line that I like is “Mr. Fred Blassie and the breakfast mess” which refers to Kaufman’s movie My Breakfast With Blassie…which is a good but different…as is everything to do with him. It was Andy talking and yes…having breakfast with wrestler Fred Blassie.
There are always rumors about celebrities being alive. You know…Lennon and Cobain hang out on an island having Mai Tai cocktails while jamming with Elvis. The only one that I thought if any more could pull it off…it would have been Andy.
The song was released in 1992 and peaked at #30 on the Billboard 100, #3 in Canada, #18 in the UK, and #8 in New Zealand. I double-checked it and #30 on Billboard is much lower than I thought it would be…I was thinking top 10.
Andy died in 1984…or did he? Bob Zmuda has said that Andy did say he was going to fake his death and said that he actually helped Andy plan it. More people have come forward saying the same thing. Every few years we get an Andy sighting in Albuquerque or somewhere else. No, I don’t believe he did fake it…but hey I would love it if he popped up well and alive anytime in the future. The world needs original people. You know he would be loving the rumors about him being alive…if he is alive or not…yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Mills: “Bill Berry is still a very good songwriter, he had a lot of musical ideas, then he and Petr Buck fleshed the rest of it out musically. It was a song that me, Pete, and Bill really loved and had musically finished right up to the last day of recording and mixing in Seattle, and we’d been leaning on Michael very heavily for some time trying to finish it.”
Man On The Moon
Mott the Hoople and the Game of Life, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Andy Kaufman in the wrestling match, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Monopoly, twenty-one, checkers, and chess, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Fred Blassie in a breakfast mess, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let’s play Twister, let’s play Risk, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I’ll see you in heaven if you make the list yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now, Andy, did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Andy, are you goofing on Elvis?
Hey baby, are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there’s nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
Moses went walking with the staff of wood, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Newton got beaned by the apple good, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Egypt was troubled by the horrible asp, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Charles Darwin had the gall to ask, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now, Andy, did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Hey Andy, are you goofing on Elvis?
Hey baby, are you having fun?
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there’s nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
Here’s a little agit for the never-believer, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here’s a little ghost for the offering, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here’s a truck stop instead of Saint Peter’s, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Andy Kaufman’s gone wrestling, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Now, Andy, did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Hey Andy, are you goofing on Elvis?
Hey baby, are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there’s nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believe there’s nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believed there’s nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
If you believed they put a man on the moon
Man on the moon
If you believed there’s nothing up his sleeve
Then nothing is cool
…