The Cataclysmic Song Michael Stipe Wrote After Waking From a State of REM, Inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

In the dream, Michael Stipe attended a party featuring a unique who’s who of the entertainment and political world, including Soviet politician Leonid Brezhnev, comedian Lenny Bruce, conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, and music journalist Lester Bangs. At the dream party, Stipe was the only person in attendance who didn’t have the initials L.B.

Afterwards, Stipe’s stream-of-consciousness turned into a rant of lyrics tied to the attendees, the state of the world, and other earth-shattering forecasts that became “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”

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 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
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

“The words come from everywhere,” Stipe told Q Magazine 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.”

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The dream was also similar to a party Stipe attended in 1980 with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, which was coincidentally a birthday gathering for Bangs in New York City, where jelly beans and birthday cake were the only foods served.

“I had read all of Lester Bangs’s stuff in ‘Creem’ and thought he was the greatest thing in the world,” recalled Buck. “Now here we were at this party, filling up on birthday cake and jelly beans. Lester was standing there, and every time someone walked by, it was like a mantra; he’d have something to say to them. He called me a ‘Rotten c—sucker.’ I was like, ‘That’s Lester Bangs. That’s so cool.”

Released on R.E.M.’s 1987 album Document, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” was a hasty, confusing, and erratic track that made for great dancing. The lyrics and thoughts seemed crammed together with no clear direction, but they were a culmination of the “L.B.” party, politics, and Stipe’s other dreams about the end of the world—hurricanes, and all.

I wanted it to be the most bombastic vocal that I could possibly muster. Something that would completely overwhelm you and drip off your shoulders and stick in your hair like bubblegum.

Michael Stipe

Six o’clock, TV hour, don’t get caught in a foreign tower
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform, book burning, blood letting
Every motive escalates, 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

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It’s the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)
It’s the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (time, I had some time alone)
I feel fine 

Partially inspired by the rapid-fire template of Bob Dylan’s 1965 song, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”—and much like “R.E.M.’s “P.S.A. (Public Service Annoucement),” recorded for the band’s 1986 album Life’s Rich Pageant and later released as “Bad Day” on their 2003 compilation In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003—”It’s the End of the World” was written by Stipe within minutes while the band was in the studio together.

“I wrote the words to ‘End of the World’ as I sung it,” Stipe told Melody Maker in 1987. “When they showed me that song in the studio, I just said, ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.’ I wanted it to be the most bombastic vocal that I could possibly muster. Something that would completely overwhelm you and drip off your shoulders and stick in your hair like bubblegum.”

In 2025, Stipe cleared up a portion of the lyrics in the song that were often misinterpreted: Left her and wasn’t coming in a hurry with the Furies and Team by team reporters baffled, trump, thethered cropped / Look at that low plane, fine then.

“It’s ‘Left of west and coming in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck,’” Stipe shared on social media on August 31, 2025, correcting some of the lyrics to “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” 38 years after its release. A day later, he shared the remaining lyrics: “It’s ‘Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped, Look at that low playing, fine, then.’”

Photo: Ebet Roberts/Redferns