Fables of the Reconstruction

For their third album the band looked beyond Dixon and Easter. Van Dyke Parks was Stipe's first choice, and Hugh Padgham, Elliot Mazer and Elvis Costello were also considered. They chose Joe Boyd, whom Buck wanted for his work with folk rock acts, and flew to London to record at Livingston Studios in Wood Green. Buck recalled that it rained every day it wasn't snowing. Boyd's habit of spending hours on mixes clashed with the spontaneous way the band had worked before, and the band felt it removed some energy.

The songs draw on Southern Gothic themes and eccentric characters, with strings, brass and banjo added. Maps and Legends was inspired by Howard Finster, and Life and How to Live It by a book by the Athens author Brivs Mekis. Green Grow the Rushes came from a pact between Stipe and Natalie Merchant to each write a song about the genocide of Native Americans, hers being Among the Americans. Buck plays banjo on Wendell Gee. The sleeve carries two front covers, one titled Fables of the Reconstruction and the other Reconstruction of the Fables.

It reached No. 28 in the United States and No. 35 in Britain, the band's first UK top 40 album, and went Gold in 1991. Can't Get There from Here, with a horn section, was the lead single and reached No. 14 on the Top Rock Tracks chart. Driver 8 reached No. 22 there, with a cover of Pylon's Crazy on its B-side. Wendell Gee, issued only in Europe, became the first R.E.M. song on the UK singles chart at No. 91. Parke Puterbaugh of Rolling Stone gave it four stars and called it unretouched R.E.M. in all their rough-cut glory.