Michael Stipe Clarifies Misunderstood Lyrics to R.E.M.’s ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It’

Michael Stipe finally put to rest a nearly four-decade-long struggle to understand just what he's singing in R.E.M.'s 1987 song "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." As fans of the song — the second single from R.E.M.'s first Top 10 and gold-selling album, Document — know, the famously incomprehensible singer fires off a string of verses that for years could only be discerned in small portions: "World serves its own needs," "Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn," "Leonard Bernstein!" R.E.M. rarely reprinted their lyrics in any form. Over the past...