Feeling Gravity's Pull

The first few measures on this first cut of the album are telling: dissonant riff, followed by waka-waka, followed by ethereal harmonics. That's pretty much Fables in four bars. Of course, there's more going on here that is unique to "Gravity". I'd always liked the "Man Ray kind of sky" bit - having a vague memory of the artist from a college class. Then I recently image-searched Man Ray... not a lot of sky, but a few full moons. One thing to notice all through Fables, and it's certainly true of this ditty, Stipe has a chant-like quality to his vocals. The melody line is constantly coming back to the root note - gravity pulling it back to center.