No. 1 With an Attitude

Somewhere, all of Stipe's lyrics are written down. "I think our publishing company has them, and they're sealed away in a vault," the singer says. "When I did go back and write them down, I had a pretty good time with it. I got all the crucial words in there, and then I just made some stuff up I figure someone's going to read it at some point and get a real laugh out of it."

Many fans would put the aforementioned document in league with the Rosetta stone — especially where Stipe's indecipherable early lyrics are concerned — but it's off-limits, of course "If there's something you want to know" Stipe says by way of apology, "I'll tell you."

He seems to be serious, and he's taken up on his offer. What is the chorus to "Sitting Still"?

"The chorus to 'Sitting Still,'" Stipe says, laughing. The song is onMurmur, but the band's been playing it live for years.

Stipe hums to himself for a minute "It doesn't make any sense," he says. "You really don't want to know."

Come on, out with it.

"On the record or off the record?"

On the record.

"I'm trying to think of it. It's just a little embarrassing because it's very poorly written."

Stipe hums some more. "I can remember the first two lines," he says. "'Up to par and Katie bar --'Katie bar the door' is a Southern expression. 'Up to par and Katie bar the kitchen door, but not me in.' That's it."

What's the next line? Is it "City traffic, the big hill"? Is it "Silly to try for the big kill"?

"There's no 'hill' in there, I know that," Stipe says. "'For the big something.' I don't remember. I really don't. I haven't sung that song in five years. I mean, sung the real words. I've syllabized it. Is that a word? When we sing it in concert, I wing it. I don't know the words. I know the sounds. I can approximate them."

That's him in the corner. That's him at the bar, drinking an Amstel Light. It's midnight on Thursday, and while Peter Buck is over at the Georgia Theater playing a few numbers with John Wesley Harding, Michael Stipe is hanging out at the 40 Watt Club. Stipe has come to see Beggar Weeds, a young Jacksonville band that he produced recently. Occasionally, a friend will approach him — Ian McKaye of the iconoclastic hardcore outfit Fugazi, say — but for the most part his presence here goes unnoticed. Stipe looks like any other guy who wears a green baseball hat, shimmies a little and shouts "Yeah!" every so often.

Of late, Stipe has gone to great lengths to convince people that his lyrics are not autobiographical. Still, it's impossible to spend time with him and not have certain lines from "Losing My Religion" run through one's head: "Every whisper of every waking hour/I'm choosing my confessions" or "Oh, no, I've said too much/I haven't said enough." And then, of course, there's always "That's me in the spotlight," of which a frustrated Stipe says, "I wish I'd said, 'That's me in the kitchen' or 'That's me in the driveway.'"

In general, the members of R.E.M. do not discuss their personal lives, past or present. This much is known for certain: Michael Stipe was a globe-trotting army brat who befriended Peter Buck when the former was a University of Georgia art student and the latter was the manager of an Athens used-record store. (The big sellers during Buck's retail days were Saturday Night Fever and Grease.) Bill Berry and Mike Mills met during high school in Macon, Georgia, when the former was a rebel and the latter was a nerd. They played in sock-hop bands together, then packed off for the university, where they met up with Buck and Stipe. Soon the foursome was living in an abandoned church — of which there remains only a red steeple that sits in front of Steeplechase Condominiums — and playing gigs that involved goofy Sixties covers and a few originals.

Above and beyond all that, this much is rumored to be true: Michael Stipe assumes everyone is thirty-one because he's thirty-one. Peter Buck once sneezed twenty-one times. Every time Mike Mills uses his hair dryer, he thinks the phone is ringing. Bill Berry never misses The Andy Griffith Show and will often recount episodes for his wife, Mari, saying, "If I was Barney..."

Of all the band members, Stipe has always been the most closemouthed — for the simple reason that his privacy has been invaded more often than anyone else's. As Stipe puts it: "I've given so much to our audience through being a singer and through writing songs that can be very emotional and I feel like that's enough. And I guess the natural tendency is to get a little defensive about it."