“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, stylized as ITEOTWAWKI(AIFF), features stream-of-consciousness lyrics that border on a rant, encompassing a wide variety of references. For example, four famous people with the initials LB are mentioned throughout the song, and the only explanation Michael Stipe has given is that he had a dream the four of them appeared in.

Overall, it decries various aspects of society that Stipe has a problem with. It does so with rapid-fire references to religion, media, patriotism, the Soviet Union, continental drift, and more. As a result, it’s hard to follow the song without a copy of the lyrics (and these annotations).

An early precursor to this song was an outtake from the band’s 1986 album, Lifes Rich Pageant, called “PSA (Bad Day)” – in 2003 a reworked version of the song was released as the single “Bad Day”, drawing ironic and inaccurate charges of being derivative, though it is a completely different song.^[1]