Michael Stipe just cleared up a nearly four-decade lyrical mystery. The R.E.M. frontman took to Bluesky on Aug. 31 to correct long-misheard lines from “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine),” the band’s rapid-fire 1987 anthem. Fans often struggled with the lyrics, even joking about it—Stipe shared a Simpsons meme poking fun at the song’s tongue-twisting delivery. Then he set the record straight: The lyric isn’t “Left her and wasn’t coming in a hurry…” but “Left of west and coming in a hurry with the Furies / Breathing down your neck.” Another misunderstood part isn’t “Team by team, reporters baffled, trump, tethered, crop…” but rather “Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped / Look at that low playing, fine, then.” Stipe explained years ago that parts of the song came from a dream about a party full of people whose names started with L.B. (Lester Bangs, Lenny Bruce, Leonard Bernstein). The track, from R.E.M.’s Document album, has carried cultural weight for decades.