Binky The Doormat Lyrics

Lyric discussion by Low Feedback 

Cover art for Binky The Doormat lyrics by R.E.M.

I always get a mental image of a party at a place with a pool, and the narrator is about to have sex with someone, just like everybody else who's at the party. The sex they're having is dirty and cold, but the narrator gives himself away even though he probably has a relationship ("distance is my tendency" - his lover isn't close to where the party is), and he might be cheating. "Bathroom friends" could be a reference to drugs, which makes his mind numb, and he cheats without considering the aftermaths, but he knows that this isn't good ("fuck with me and traumatize"). "Have you lost your place? I wore my doormat face" probably refers to the fact that he has woken up, hangover, and realise that he's screwed it up.

Either the narrator is the doormat, someone who's just been pushed over, or the girl he had sex with was a doormat, someone he just used with the same coldness that's included in all the sex that where going on. Afterwards he laid out his welcome doormat, as if he wants to say that he's sorry.

So you could say that it's about the dirty and bad sides of sexual relationships with no love.