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Timeline of Sounds
The Night Is Yours Alone
R.E.M., soul food, and death.
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Sometimes you are maybe old, but not as old as the people around you insist you are. Sometimes you have seen some things, but not nearly enough to know that you’ve seen enough. In 1992, R.E.M. was already seven albums into a career that had made them wildly successful and considered one of the greatest bands of their era. On the wings of a mandolin riff, the single “Losing My Religion” soared up the Billboard charts in 1991, expanding R.E.M.’s original fan base and making their album Out of Time a massive success. But also, in the same moment, the sound of alternative rock, as they had become comfortable in it, was shifting: With the inception and then rapid popularity of grunge, guitars became murkier; singers — even those who found themselves inspired by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe — became raspier, more hard-edged. R.E.M., by comparison, were no longer new, fresh, and as unique as they once were.
What to do, then, in the fall of 1992, but dig up Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, drag a bunch of string instruments into a studio, and create an orchestra of loneliness and isolation. Automatic for the People takes its name from Weaver D’s Delicious Fine Foods in Athens, Georgia, where the band originated. Weaver D’s is hard to miss — a lime-green shack where fresh soul food is served. Dexter Weaver cuts the bananas for the banana pudding fresh every morning. He still works in the kitchen, which, at least the single time I’ve been present in the restaurant, is buzzing, loud but jovial. The slogan “Automatic for the People” hangs outside, underneath the restaurant’s name.
On the night in 1992 before Michael Stipe, along with a lawyer, approached Dexter Weaver to ask if the band could use the slogan for their next album, Weaver D’s had been robbed. The restaurant was on hard times, and Dexter Weaver — a soul man — didn’t know much about this skinny white man’s band, or how big they were, but he granted them the rights anyway. Before he knew it, his restaurant was a hot spot, a tourist’s dream drop-in.
