R.E.M. released “It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” as a single on November 16, 1987. The song came from their fifth studio album, Document, and packed disasters, famous names and stray observations into verses that barely seemed to stop for breath. Then the chorus opened up, answering all that alarm with an almost cheerful declaration.
The band recorded Document at Sound Emporium in Nashville, sharing production duties with Scott Litt. Michael Stipe handled lead vocals, Peter Buck played guitar, Mike Mills played bass and Bill Berry played drums; all four shared the song's writing credit. This was the beginning of a substantial working relationship. Litt co-produced six consecutive R.E.M. albums, continuing through New Adventures in Hi-Fi in 1996. Document also became the band's first platinum album, while “The One I Love” gave them their first Billboard Hot 100 top 10 single.
The rapid delivery had a predecessor in their own unfinished material. Around the sessions for Lifes Rich Pageant, R.E.M. had worked on “PSA,” short for public service announcement. That unreleased song anticipated the cadence of “It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Its eventual return would give the band another single, but the 1987 recording developed its own peculiar mixture of public catastrophe and private memories.
One of those memories belonged to Stipe. In a 2011 interview with Interview magazine, he recalled sitting with rock critic Lester Bangs at a party where the food amounted to jelly beans and cheesecake. A related dream supplied another ingredient: Stipe found himself among guests whose names all carried the initials L.B. He named Bangs, comedian Lenny Bruce and composer Leonard Bernstein as members of that imagined gathering. The experience and the dream eventually fed one of the song's verses.
“I am not an autobiographical writer,” Stipe told the magazine, explaining that pieces of his experiences could take years to become lyrics. Inside a song that seems to be taking in the whole world, there's a memory of sitting on a couch with someone and having very little to eat. The famous names have a personal connection beneath their percussive sound.
The video found an equally specific way to picture the wreckage. Directed by James Herbert, it follows a teenage skateboarder through a cluttered room in a partially collapsed farmhouse. He examines objects and pictures, a dog wanders into the scene, and the boy eventually starts skating inside. The setting gives the title a visible aftermath, while the activity inside it keeps the film restless and playful.
The single peaked at No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100. A British reissue reached No. 39 in December 1991, taking the recording into the UK top 40. Those chart runs belong to different stages of the song's release history.
The unfinished composition behind its development eventually resurfaced, too. R.E.M. returned to “PSA,” revised the lyrics and released it as “Bad Day” in 2003. It appeared on In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, turning an idea from the band's earlier writing sessions into a completed release after its fast-moving successor had already spent years in the catalog.
