R.E.M. - THE SIDEWINDER SLEEPS TONIGHT

Released: February 1, 1993

Charts: UK: #17 

Tucked between the meditations on death and memory that define “Automatic for the People”, R.E.M.’s “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” feels like a beam of sunlight breaking through a heavy sky. Released in February 1993 as the album’s third single, it’s one of the strangest “pop” songs to ever slip into the Top 20 — a tumbling, word-drunk burst of playfulness that offers a brief reprieve from Automatic’s pervasive melancholy.

From its opening notes, “Sidewinder” playfully tips its hat to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” The resemblance was so strong that R.E.M. opted to pay for the rights — and even record their own cover for the single’s B-side. Built on jangling guitars and buoyant harmonies, the song sounds almost airborne, carried by Michael Stipe’s gleeful, near-incomprehensible vocal phrasing. “Call me when you try to wake her up,” the song’s real chorus line, famously became one of the most misheard lyrics in British pop history — mistaken by four out of ten listeners for “Calling Jamaica.” Stipe, for his part, took the confusion in stride; after all, ambiguity was part of R.E.M.’s DNA.

The song is a tangle of surreal imagery and domestic minutiae — telephones, cartoons, dreams, and the exhaustion of modern life. “Half of the song is about someone trying to find a place to sleep,” bassist Mike Mills explained. “The other half — you’re on your own.” Stipe himself has said the line “their world has flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream” is one of his personal favorites, likening its imagery to cartoon characters who only rest in dreams.

The song’s recording sessions were lighthearted, and that energy made it onto tape. The laughter that echoes through the chorus isn’t an artistic flourish — it’s Stipe genuinely cracking up after repeatedly mispronouncing “Dr. Seuss” as “Zeus.” Rather than erase the moment, producer Scott Litt kept it in. It’s a rare glimpse of joy captured in real time.

The accompanying Kevin Kerslake-directed video, often mistakenly credited to Peter Care, reflects that loose spontaneity. Stipe wanders through stark rooms lit by flashing lights while his bandmates play in separate spaces, their performances fractured but vibrant — a visual echo of the song’s restless energy.

In hindsight, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” may be R.E.M.’s most necessary contradiction. Coming after the somber weight of “Everybody Hurts” and “Drive,” it offered levity — a wink, a laugh, a breath of relief. Guitarist Peter Buck later admitted the band included it to “break the prevailing mood” of “Automatic for the People”.