In 1985, Stipe said that reading a map is used in this song as a metaphor for reading a person: "There are a lot of people like maps. You look at them, and you can lay them out on a table and read them and run your finger over them. You can find their little stories, their squares and circles...you go down the key and it tells you what the circle means. And then you look at the map and it starts to make sense."
He also said (in 1986) that it was "kind of about" Reverend Howard Finster, a baptist minister in Summerville, Georgia (died 2001) who was known for his visionary and folk art (e.g. the cover of "Reckoning"), hence the references to painting.
In 1985, Stipe said that reading a map is used in this song as a metaphor for reading a person: "There are a lot of people like maps. You look at them, and you can lay them out on a table and read them and run your finger over them. You can find their little stories, their squares and circles...you go down the key and it tells you what the circle means. And then you look at the map and it starts to make sense."
He also said (in 1986) that it was "kind of about" Reverend Howard Finster, a baptist minister in Summerville, Georgia (died 2001) who was known for his visionary and folk art (e.g. the cover of "Reckoning"), hence the references to painting.