Song 322: This week on the playlist you can hear It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M., written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe. Last week’s track, Gimme Shelter, featured words very similar to what might these days come out of the mouth of someone living in a war zone in places like Syria and Yemen, and people there probably do feel like it’s the end of the world as they know it, so this cut seemed like an appropriate follow-up, although I doubt very many of those war zone residents would say they feel fine. Listening to this record during the present-day election season, the line “You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light” seems to describe some of what a certain campaign has expressed, and it comes near the end of a verse that has the word trumped in its first line, interestingly enough. As much as I relish this recording and the stream of consciousness dark dreams the words convey, I do hope that when the current tournament of lies reaches its November conclusion, it’s actually not the end of the world as we know it. On a side note, my band Victims of Technology opened for R.E.M. at The Stone in San Francisco back in June of 1983, and I give more details about that in my post for The One I Love (Song 36).
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