What is the R.E.M. song ‘It’s The End of the World As We Know It’ about?
Anchored by Michael Stipe’s distinctive vocals, R.E.M. made several genre excursions as a recording act during their three-decade run. Their eclectic run through the 1980s was particularly influential on the ’90s grunge wave, with Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain rarely squandering an opportunity to sing the Georgia band’s praises. Meanwhile, R.E.M. evolved to explore the sedate, anthemic side of melancholia and embraced electro in 1998’s Up.
The one constant throughout R.E.M.’s immaculate oeuvre is Stipe’s knack for engaging lyricism. Thanks to the Dada movement and the non-conformist work of Beat Generation writers, artists can get away with a heap of nonsense, but literary collages should still be compelling, referential and well-structured, especially in music.
As a distinctly gifted lyricist, Stipe can unfurl stories and ideas in creatively innovative ways, ensuring his voice always fits the music. Far from nonsense, R.E.M.’s lyrics invariably pertain to a grounding in the real world, whether expressing Stipe’s psychological contortions or commenting on the absurdities of the external world.
Today, we’re examining the lyrics of R.E.M.’s smilingly apocalyptic hit of 1987, ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’. Alongside neighbouring singles, ‘The One I Love’ and ‘Finest Worksong’, the classic track helped buoy the band’s fifth studio album, Document, into the US top ten.
What inspired Michael Stipe to write the song?
‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ is an apocalyptic track, but the morose sounds of Automatic for the People were still in the post. The theme is juxtaposed by the titular parenthesis and an upbeat tone to the instrumentals. Amid Stipe’s pacey vocal onslaught, he mentions several natural disasters alongside flitting images of human life: “Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly beans, boom!”
“The words come from everywhere,” Stipe told Q in a 1992 interview. “I’m extremely aware of everything around me, whether I am in a sleeping state, awake, dream-state, or just in day-to-day life.”
Who is mentioned in the song?
According to Stipe, the song’s calamitous verses originated in a dream. “There’s a part in ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It’ that came from a dream where I was at Lester Bangs’ birthday party, and I was the only person there whose initials weren’t LB,” he told Q. “So there was Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, Leonard Bernstein… So that ended up in the song along with a lot of stuff I’d seen when I was flipping TV channels.”
- Lester Bangs – American music journalist (1948-82).
- Lenny Bruce – American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist (1925-66).
- Leonid Brezhnev – Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1906-82).
- Leonard Bernstein – American conductor, composer and pianist (1918-90)
Making sense of the nonsense:
Taking a leaf from Bob Dylan’s 1965 classic ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ is a collection of rapped verses. The first small verse begins on a seismic note before Stipe introduces the natural world to aeroplanes and airs his first LB namedrop, Lenny Bruce.
Lenny Bruce’s career depended on a penchant for political satire. Hence, this early reference bolsters Stipe’s idea of laughing in the face of absurdity, no matter how apocalyptic. As the song unfolds, Stipe continues to place the natural world at odds with mankind, entering political territory with the dubious mention of patriotism and the line, “Government for hire in a combat site”.
What are the ‘End of the World As We Know It’ lyrics?
“That’s great
It starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes
An aeroplane
Lenny Bruce is not afraid
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs, don’t misserve your own needs
Speed it up a notch, speak, grunt, no, strength
The ladder starts to clatter with fear fight, down, height
Wire in a fire, representing seven games
And a government for hire and a combat site
Left her and wasn’t coming in a hurry with the Furies
Breathing down your neck
Team by team, reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped
Look at that low plane, fine, then
Uh-oh, overflow, population, common group
But it’ll do, save yourself, serve yourself.
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed
Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right, right
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light
Feeling pretty psyched
[Chorus]
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine
Six o’clock, TV hour, don’t get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform, book burning, blood letting
Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a votive, step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means
No fear, cavalier renegade steer clear
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
And I decline
The other night I drifted nice, continental drift divide
Mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein
Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck
Right? Right”.
Listen to R.E.M.’s ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ below.
