Athens, Georgia, is a fascinating place. They’ve got a bakery called “Bakery” on Lumpkin, just south of Broad Street. There’s a lot of farmers in the area and, if they need hardware, there’s a store called “Farmer’s Hardware” towards the west end of town. And a decrepit, grayishgreen building in the middle of the town boldly advertises “Bus.”

In addition, of course, they’ve got R.E.M., who—at the very end of July— were working on six or seven songs for their next album. Not Lifes Rich Pageant, that was released the day after I got to Athens. The album after that.

It was a strange day, that day I went to Athens. The killer heat wave that’d gripped the South all summer was in full force. It was 99° that day; a couple of girls on the street told me it was pretty nice because there was a breeze. Yeah, a breeze out of hell. A shipment of hay from Colorado had arrived in town that very day, along with me. The hay was for starving cattle in the area; I was for R.E.M.