“Nightswimming” by R.E.M.

"Nightswimming" comes from Automatic for the People, R.E.M.'s eighth album, from 1992, and became its fifth single the following summer. It's about as bare as the band ever got: just Michael Stipe singing over Mike Mills' piano, with a string arrangement by John Paul Jones, the former Led Zeppelin bassist, and Deborah Workman's oboe drifting in toward the end.

Mills wrote the music and Stipe the words, though the whole band shares the credit. Stipe sings about a bunch of friends slipping off to go skinny dipping after dark, a memory drawn from the band's own early days, and the song feels like a snapshot fading at the edges, tender and wistful.

Scott Litt produced it with the band and mixed it with Clif Norrell, and a small army of guest violinists, violists and cellists fills out the strings. Jem Cohen directed the video.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.