An early instrumental demo of the song was known to the band as "C to D Slide". Guitarist Peter Buck has explained how the music came together: "'Man on the Moon' was something that Bill had, this one chord change that he came in with, which was C to D like the verse of the song, and he said: 'I don't know what to do with that.' I used to finish some of Bill's things ... he would come up with the riffs, but I would be the finish guy for that. I sat down and came up with the chorus, the bridges, and so forth. I remember we showed it to Mike and Michael when they came in later; definitely we had the song finished. I think Bill played bass and I played guitar; we kept going around with it. I think we might have played some mandolin on it in the rehearsal studio."