How does the end of the world start according to R.E.M.?

According to R.E.M.’s song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” the end of the world starts with an earthquake. The line appears near the beginning of the song, whose rapid, stream-of-consciousness lyrics race through images of disasters, public figures, media fragments, and social chaos.

The song was written by R.E.M. members Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe. It first appeared on the band’s 1987 album Document and was released as a single later that year. Its unusual vocal delivery and dense list of references made the opening earthquake line especially memorable.

Despite its apocalyptic title, the song is not a straightforward prediction about how the world will actually end. Stipe described the lyrics as drawing from dreams, television images, and things he noticed around him. The track grew from an earlier unreleased R.E.M. song called “PSA,” and its musical style has often been compared with Bob Dylan’s fast, collage-like “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”