Michael Stipe Reveals ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It’ Lyrics Are Wrong

R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe is clearing up confusion around the lyrics to “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” after 38 years.

On Sunday, Aug. 31, the “Losing My Religion” musician, 65, decided to clarify some of the mistaken lyrics of the 1987 classic, which features a slew of pop culture references and non sequiturs — on Bluesky.

Stipe initially shared a meme from The Simpsons with Homer saying, “I can sing all the lyrics to “It’s the End of the World” by R.E.M.” Another character replies, “No you can’t, Mr. Simpson. No one can!”

Later in the day, he shared another Bluesky post revealing the line “Left her and wasn’t coming in a hurry with the Furies / Breathing down your neck,” per Genius is actually “Left of west and coming in a hurry with the Furies / Breathing down your neck.”

Stipe also clarified another line in the song.

On Genius, the lyrics read, “Team by team, reporters baffled, trump, tethered, crop / Look at that low plane, fine, then.” However, the “Everybody Hurts” performer noted on Bluesky that the lyrics are actually “Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped / Look at that low playing,
fine, then.”

“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” was the second single from R.E.M.’s 1987 album, Document.

In a 2011 interview with Interview Magazine, Stipe opened up about how he came up with some of the lyrics to the track, which involved a dream about a party where everyone had “names that started with the initials L.B. except for me.”

“It was Lester Bangs, Lenny Bruce, Leonard Bernstein,” he said. “That’s how one verse of the song came about: ‘Cheesecake, jelly bean, boom . . .’ It was fun, that party.”

In recent years, Stipe has reminded the world of the significance of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).”

In a March 2020 video shared to Stipe’s official website, he sang a few lines of the tune, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

After singing a few lines, he spoke directly to viewers.

“I do feel fine. I feel okay,” said Stipe at the time. “The important part of that lyric, that song title, is ‘as we know it.’ We’re about to go through, we are going through something that none of us have ever encountered before and that is, of course, the coronavirus. And it’s real and it’s serious and it’s here.”