It only took 38 years, but Michael Stipe of R.E.M. has shared the correct lyrics to the band’s 1987 hit, “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
Stipe, who seemingly had the time over the holiday weekend, hopped on Bluesky to correct a couple of lines from the song that features the singer’s famously under-enunciated lyrics coupled with a rapid-fire delivery.
On August 30th, Stipe posted a meme from The Simpsons where Homer Simpson claims to be able to sing all of the words to the song, just to be told, “No you can’t, Mr. Simpson. No one can.” The caption to Stipe’s post: “I can.” See the post below.
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Soon, Stipe returned to Bluesky, this time to share the correct lyrics.
“It’s ‘Left of west and coming in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck,’” read one post, followed by “It’s ‘Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped, Look at that low playing, fine, then’,” in another post. See the posts below.
Stipe’s clarification means that many trusted lyric source websites, including Genius and Songfacts, have been sharing the wrong lyrics to the second single from R.E.M.’s fifth studio album, Document, for years. One site that does have the correct words: Spotify, which licenses lyrics from the MusixMatch database.
Back in 1992, Stipe explained to Q Magazine (via American Songwriter) that the lyrics to the song were in part inspired by 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 L.B. So there was Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, Leonard Bernstein,” he shared. “So that ended up in the song along with a lot of stuff I’d seen when I was flipping TV channels.”
Earlier this year, Stipe joined a cavalcade of artists, including Bruce Springsteen, Flea, Karen O and Benmont Tench, at Carnegie Hall to pay tribute to Patti Smith and her illustrious career.
I can
— Michael Stipe (@michaelstipe.bsky.social) 2025-08-30T17:14:21.198Z
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
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