Michael Stipe clarifies more lyrics to REM classic, ‘It’s The End of the World’
Michael Stipe has clarified even more lyrics to the REM classic, ‘It’s The End of the World’.
Followers of Stipe’s account on BlueSky will be aware that he recently lifted the lid on one of the biggest mysteries in the band’s career. It all began when Stipe shared a meme from The Simpsons to begin the dialogue with his fans.
In the image, Homer Simpson says, “I can sing all of the words to ‘It’s The End of the World’ by REM,” to which the man sitting opposite him replies, “No you can’t, Mr Simpson. No one can!”. The former REM frontman then captioned the post, “Me”.
The singer then revealed the actual lyrics to one particularly contentious verse on the track, which reads, “Left of west and coming in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck, Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped, Look at that low playing, fine, then.”
Then, in another post on September 6th, Stipe shared feedback he’d received from his REM bandmate Mike Mills correcting him about the aforementioned verse. He wrote, “Mike Mills says ‘Love your posts on BlueSky, but wasn’t it ‘that low plane, fine, then’ not ‘flying’, then? I remember you said it was from a roadside sign about watch out for low planes flying. But that was a long time ago.”
Stipe replied to his former bandmate by jokingly writing, “I’m doing my best. Thx Mike!”
The vocalist then shared further insights into the song’s lyrics, revealing one verse should be, “Feed it off an aux, speak, grunt no strength, the ladder start to clatter with fear fight down height, wire in a fire representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site.”
In a later post, he clarified another line to the song, writing, “Uh-oh, overflow, population ‘common food, but it’ll do,’ save yourself, serve yourself, world serves its own needs — listen to your heart bleed, dummy with the raptured and the revered and the right, right.”
However, Stipe did also concede in the same post, “And let it be said I’m of the lets eat grandma school of punctuation, so”.
Notably, REM didn’t frequently publish their lyrics within the liner notes to their records like other artists, which, combined with Stipe’s unique vocal delivery, has made many of the lyrics to songs mysteries to even their most ardent fans. With that in mind, Stipe advised his followers, “don’t even try” to ascertain lyrics from Chronic Town, Murmur, and Reckoning, adding, “Just form vowels and syllables, and mean it.”
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