10 Facts About R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”

This song has been getting quite the workout over the last week or so.  There’s even a radio station in Calgary that played it over and over and over as the Mayan Apocalypse was supposed to be happening. (I’ll bet that joke got old real soon.)

Here are some facts about the song.

1.  The song evolved from an unreleased song called “PSA” that had structural and melodic similarities. (“PSA” later showed up under the title “Bad Day” in 2003, so if you’ve always thought the songs were related, you’re right.)

2.  The band wrote the song using Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” as inspiration.

3.  Another song that went through the band’s mind during “ITEOTWAWKI” was a 1974 hit by Reunion called “Life is a Rock.”

4. The quartet of names with the initials “LB” (“Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, Lester bands and Lenny Bruce”) apparently come from a dream Michael Stipe had about being at a birthday party for Lester Bangs.

5.  Although, much of the rest of the lyrics come as a stream of consciousness, there are some specific references.  The line “THe other night I tripped at Know” is a nod to Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where the band did a substantial amount of drinking.

6.  Grey’s Anatomy used the title of the song for a two-part episode in season two.

7.  After the 9/11 attacks, dozens of radio stations dropped the song from their playlists because it was deemed inappropriate.

8.  The song never reached any higher than #69 on the Billboard singles chart.

9.  An Italian signer named Liagbue covered the song in 1994.  He kept the music but wrote entirely new lyrics in Italian.  His song is called “A che ora è la fine del mondo?” (“At What Time Will The End Of The World Be?”)

10.  Finally, here’s the original video, which was directed by James Herbert, an American plainted who not only did a lot of REM bvideos but a series of acclaimed short films.