Everybody Hurts

Bill Berry brought in the song that became "Everybody Hurts" as a one-minute country-and-western sketch, strummed around the verses with no chorus and no bridge. The R.E.M. drummer wrote much of it, though the band shared songwriting credits among all four members, so how much he actually penned remained unknown. Guitarist Peter Buck said the group went through about four different ideas before settling on a Stax-style feel inspired by Otis Redding's "Pain in My Heart." Berry ended up not playing on the original track at all; a Univox drum machine took his place, though he was responsible for sampling the drum pattern. Buck and Mike Mills played the basic session, with the rest overdubbed afterward.

The string arrangement came from former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Michael Stipe had hoped to bring in Patti Smith as a second vocalist, but the plan fell through, and she later recorded her own cover as a bonus track on her 2007 album Twelve. Buck explained that the lyrics were unusually direct because the song was aimed at teenagers. In 2022, Stipe told Rick Rubin it was inspired by Nazareth's cover of "Love Hurts."

Released as a single in April 1993 by Warner Bros. Records, the song peaked at number 29 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top 10 in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Iceland, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Jake Scott directed its music video, filmed in San Antonio, Texas, which won a Billboard Music Video Award in 1994.