"Everybody Hurts" is a song by American rock band R.E.M., originally released on the band's 1992 album Automatic for the People, it was also released as a single in 1993.
The song peaked at #29 on the US Billboard Hot 100, #21 on the US Alternative Songs chart (Billboard), and reached the top ten on the charts in Australia, Canada, France, Iceland, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Much of the song was written by drummer Bill Berry, although as R.E.M. shares songwriting credits among its members, it is unknown how much he actually wrote. Berry's drums are largely absent from the song—a Univox drum machine took his place—but he was responsible for the sampling of the drum pattern on the track. The string arrangement was written by Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones.
In the video for the song, directed by Jake Scott and filmed along the double deck portions of I-10 near the I-35 Interchange in downtown San Antonio, Texas in February 1993, the band is stuck in a traffic jam. It shows the people in other cars and subtitles of their thoughts appear on screen. A man standing on an overpass drops pages from a book he is reading onto the cars below, while the subtitles read "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I" and "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy", quotes from the biblical Book of Psalms 61 and 126 respectively. At the end, all the people leave their cars and walk instead; then they vanish, followed by scenes of a newscast reporting on the unfamiliar event. Although Michael Stipe is featured prominently in the video, he remains silent until the final "Hold On, Hold On" part of the song. The video was heavily inspired by the traffic jam in the opening dream sequence of Fellini's 8½.
