Legendary R.E.M. front man Michael Stipe says we’ve all been getting the lyrics to one of the band’s most famous songs wrong for the last 38 years.
Released in November 1987, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine),” was one of R.E.M.’s first mainstream hits, which along with “The One I Love,” helped propel the Atlanta-based group to stardom. Known for its rapid-fire and seemingly nonsensical lyrics, the song reached No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 list and cracked the top 20 on the American rock charts.
Over the weekend, Stipe decided it was time to let the world know that some of the documented lyrics on Genius.com and other sites are incorrect.
It all started when the 65-year-old singer shared a Simpsons meme on Bluesky. In the clip, Homer says he can “sing all the lyrics to “It’s the End of the World” by R.E.M” but another character doesn’t believe him, arguing that no one can do that.
“I can,” Stipe said simply in his quote-post.
I can
— Michael Stipe (@michaelstipe.bsky.social) 2025-08-30T17:14:21.198Z
Stipe proceeded to prove his point by issuing corrections to a couple of lines that he says have been misidentified.
Here’s what we’ve been getting wrong, according to Stipe
In an ensuing Bluesky post, Stipe said the lines in the first verse reported to be “Left her and wasn’t coming in a hurry with the Furies / Breathing down your neck,” are not accurate.
“It’s ‘Left of west and coming in a hurry with the Furies / Breathing down your neck,'” he explained.
It’s ‘Left of west and coming in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck
— Michael Stipe (@michaelstipe.bsky.social) 2025-09-01T00:10:02.362Z
Not done yet, Stipe said the next set of lines is actually not “Team by team, reporters baffled, trump, tethered, crop / Look at that low plane, fine, then.”
Instead, it’s “Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped / Look at that low playing, fine, then.”
It’s “Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped, Look at that low playing, fine, then
— Michael Stipe (@michaelstipe.bsky.social) 2025-09-01T18:11:34.135Z
Stipe didn’t reveal any other mistakes, so we’re guessing the other lyrics are all reported correctly.
Considering how hard it is to decipher what Stipe is saying when listening to the song in real time, only having a couple of lines wrong isn’t all that bad for these lyrics sites.
The meaning of “It’s the End of the World”
Reading through the song’s lyrics, there’s no real logical connection between many of the words.
Stipe explained in a 1992 interview that he was inspired to write the “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” by a dream sequence.
“The words come from everywhere,” the “Stand” singer told Q Magazine. “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.”
“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 L.B. 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,” Stipe added.
This story was originally reported by Men’s Journal on Sep 2, 2025, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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