I would pick phrases out of the air and just throw them into the songs. I use it as a way to explain what it means to spite your face, which is so much more poetic. Later when I realized that sex sells, I would strip down to my bare body and sometimes shave my chest because it looked better from a distance. And yeah, I mean, I was wearing the coat. I was literally in embodying my own lyric. I was protecting myself.
Michael Stipe joins to talk about his remarkable life, photography practice, and career as the lead singer and lyricist for the band R.E.M.