Song a Day Series: 365 Days of Music–’Nightswimming’

Some songs are popular and you love them, but after a thousand listens they get old. Other songs never have an early peak of popularity but are simply so well written and musically rich that they sustain, never getting old. I think of these as marathon songs as opposed to sprinters. One such example is Nightswimming by R.E.M. The alternative band from Athens, GA has sold over 70 million records and had ten albums in the Top 10 including juggernaut singles like Losing My Religion, Everybody Hurts, Stand, and Man on the Moon yet one of their most enduring songs, peaking at #27 as a single continues to shine as bright as the imagery in its lyrics. Coldplay’s Chris Martin calls Nightswimming the “best song ever written.”

One secret to the song’s enduring popularity is the subject matter. The central theme is a reflection of the band’s pastoral childhood or, more appropriately, young adulthood when the band members would go skinny dipping in Georgia. The picture conjured in the mind’s eye is quite similar to that of Bruce Springsteen’s Spirit In the Night, Bob Seger’s Against the Wind, and Kid Rock’s All Summer Long. There are many coming of age reflection songs, most of which are bogged down with sentiment. This song is not overly sentimental; it is not depressing or joyful, but it is poignant and beautiful. Memories are not anthems. They are snapshots and no song captures this concept as magically. I cannot help but wonder when Michael Stipe sings “they cannot see me naked” if he just means literally due to the skinny dipping, or if it also serves as a metaphor for that fear of being exposed that we all experience as we come of age. That may or may not be the case, but one thing remarkable about this song is that the lyrics are crafted in a way that they are ripe for multiple interpretations. This fact does not mean it is vague, rather, people can connect to it from many different perspectives.

Nightswimming appeared on the 1992 album Automatic For The People and is best enjoyed while reading the lyrics and sipping a glass of merlot!