"Now Andy did you hear about this one..."
The context of the song "Man on the Moon" by R.E.M. is possibly one of the most important things to take into account when analyzing it. I love R.E.M. and this song, but before this, I had never watched the video and I had never really stopped to think about the context of the song.
The song includes a lot of references to pop culture hoaxes that might not be understood out of context. A major one in the song refers to Andy Kaufman who, I will admit, I had never even heard of besides "Andy Kaufman and the wrestling match" that is mentioned in this song and shown in the video. This "wrestling match" turned out to be a staged act between Kaufman, an entertainer/comedian, and a professional WWF (now know as WWE) wrestler. Kaufman was also known for his Elvis impersonations which are shown in the video ("Andy are you goofing on Elvis?") and there are rumors that Kaufman may have staged his own death.
The chorus of the song "If you believed they put a man on the moon/man on the moon/If you believed there's nothing up his sleeve/Then nothing is cool" refers to the widespread belief that people never really went to the moon and it was all just a War of the Worlds-type hoax. The song goes on to mention Darwin and Newton and Moses, among other things, and ultimately back to Andy Kaufman.
Taken out of context, this song is simply that: a song. But when you take into account everything that makes up the song, I think "Man on the Moon" has a deeper meaning. It is a criticism of society's tendency to doubt things they shouldn't, such as space exploration, while believing things that aren't true (Kaufman's wrestling match and the possibility that he faked his death). It puts questioning Andy Kaufman on the same level of questioning God, which raises the question that since there are so many hoaxes that people fall for, how do we even know what to believe? Are we so gullible that we will believe just about anything, or are we so distrustful that we question everything? As the song puts it, "Are we losing touch?"
