Day After Day #346: It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (1987)

All good things must come to an end. I'm certainly not talking about 2024, which will go down as one of the more effed up years in history, but this little daily exercise is wrapping up. I started a few days late and I missed a few along the way, but I'm pretty impressed that I was able to stick with it for the entire year. I want to do something similar for 2025, but not daily, because that is difficult at times. Maybe weekly, and obviously something a little different.

As for a final song, R.E.M. upbeat apocalyptic whirlwind of a rocker "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" seems fitting. The last several years, every year has seemed like the end of the world and yet we keep going.

The song is on Document, the band's last album on I.R.S. before signing to Warner Brothers and a demarcation point for some hardcore fans of R.E.M.'s earlier, quieter sound who jumped off the bandwagon when "The One I Love" became a top 10 hit. The band was expanding into a more mainstream act, which turned off some of those earlier. As for me, I stuck with them because they're a great goddamn band.

"It's the End of the World" was the second single off Document after "The One I Love" and was released in November 1987 after the staggering success of the lead single. Frontman Michael Stipe came up with some of the rapid-fire lyrics from a dream he had where he was at legendary rock critic Lester Bangs' birthday party and he was the only one in attendance who didn't have the initials LB. He balanced with the doom-and-gloom news he saw on TV.

"That's great, it starts with an earthquake/Birds and snakes and aeroplanes/And Lenny Bruce is not afraid/Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn/World serves its own needs/Don't mis-serve your own needs/Speed it up a notch, speed, grunt, no strength/The ladder starts to clatter/With a fear of height, down, height/Wire in a fire, represent the seven games/And a government for hire and a combat site/Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry/With the Furies breathing down your neck."

The song is influenced by Bob Dylan's classic "Subterranean Homesick Blues," another song featuring quickly sung stream-of-consciousness lyrics.

"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/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."

Musically, the song has its origins in an unreleased track called "PSA," which was later reworked and released in 2003 as "Bad Day."

"Six o'clock, TV hour, don't get caught in foreign tower/Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself burn/Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting/Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate/Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down/Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh/This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear/A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies/Offer me alternatives, offer me solutions and I decline."

The song only got to #69 on the Billboard Hot 100 but it got a lot of play on rock radio and MTV. During my junior year at UNH, my roommates and I took a road trip to Montreal for spring break in March 1988. We were in an establishment called the Peel Pub and they had a cover band that played "It's the End of the World," which of course we all loved. We didn't know all the lyrics but we definitely knew this part:

"The other night I drifted continental drift divide/Mountains sit in a line...Leonard Bernstein/Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs/Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom/You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right, right/It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone)/It's the end of the world as we know it (time 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)."

The brilliant minds at Clear Channel included the song on a memo of songs considered "lyrically questionable" after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In more recent years, it has become popular around potentially calamitous events like the supposed Mayan apocalypse in December 2012, the COVID-19 pandemic and different religious doomsday predictions. 

Document became R.E.M.'s most popular album to date, hitting #10 on the Billboard 200. By the early '90s, R.E.M. was one of the biggest bands in the world, which didn't end as a result. Drummer Bill Berry left the band in 1997, leaving Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills to continue on as a trio; they released five more albums before calling it quits in 2011. 

 

Day After Day #65: Talk About the Passion

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Talk About the Passion (1983)

When it comes to evolving as an artist, one band that really changed over the course of its career was R.E.M. Formed in 1980 by four students at the University of Georgia, the band was one of the leaders of the indie/college/alternative/whateveryouwannacallit rock movement of the early '80s. By the time the group called it quits in 2011, they were one of the biggest selling bands in the world.

R.E.M. got plenty of buzz from their 1982 EP Chronic Town, which featured the single "Radio Free Europe," and that led to the band signing with I.R.S. Records. In April 1983, the band released its first album Murmur. Most critics referred to R.E.M. style as jangle pop, owing to guitarist Peter Buck's guitar sound at the time, but the band was equally known for singer Michael Stipe's mumbly singing style and enigmatic lyrics. The band steered clear of guitar solos or synths, preferring to avoid musical cliches. 

A re-recording of "Radio Free Europe" was the lead single off the album and made it to #78 on the Billboard Hot 100. The second single was "Talk About the Passion" and it didn't chart, but it made an impact on college radio and is a fan favorite. Stipe later said the song was about hunger, acknowledging that the lyrics weren't clear about that. A 1988 video the band made features images of homeless people and a closing shot of an aircraft carrier, with a caption saying that in 1987, the cost of one destroyer-class warship was $910 million. 

"Empty prayer, empty mouths combien reaction/Empty prayer, empty mouths talk about the passion/Not everyone can carry the weight of the world. Not everyone can carry the weight the world."

The band then launches right into the chorus, which is the song title. There's not a lot of lyrics on "Talk About the Passion," although Stipe throws in a little French: "Combien, combien, combien de temps." ("Combien de temps" means "how long" in English.)

Musically, the song is delicate and immaculate, with Buck's Rickenbacker leading off with a circular part. Later in the song, an uncredited cellist from the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra is featured, adding some texture. It's a very simple yet very complex song. Probably a little too strange to be a radio hit, which is why it wasn't. 

In October 1983, R.E.M. made its first national TV appearance on a newish show called "Late Night with David Letterman." I was a fan by this point and would record the show on our VCR because the episodes aired at 12:30 a.m. The band actually played two songs, leading off with "Radio Free Europe" before Letterman came over to briefly chat with them. Stipe was so shy at this point in his career that he stayed in the background while Buck and bassist Mike Mills (who looks like he's 12) joke around with Dave. The second song they played was so new it didn't have a name, but it later turned up on the band's next album as "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)." 

Fast forward a few years and I'm in college at the University of New Hampshire and R.E.M. played a show there. For some unfathomable reason, I didn't go, which I kick myself for to this day. I did hear from a friend that Stipe performed almost the entire show with his back to the audience, which again must have been the shyness. I finally saw R.E.M. in 1989 on the Green tour and was shocked to see that Stipe had transformed into a complete showman, having shaved his head on the sides; he was dancing around the stage shirtless, singing into a megaphone and generally exuding serious charisma. 

Over the next several years, R.E.M. rivaled U2 as one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Drummer Bill Berry stepped away from the band in 1997 and they continued on as a three-piece with mixed results until 2011. They've resisted getting back together. I recently caught a great show at the Sinclair featuring actor Michael Shannon and musician Jason Narducy with a band performing Murmur in its entirety, along with all of Chronic Town and a bunch of other R.E.M. classics. It was pretty damn great and a cool way to hear those old classics done really well.