Songs of My Misspent Youth: It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

The world as we know it ends all the time. It's a difficult idea to grasp as a kid, especially when possible futures being suggested are wholly disturbing.

But I was lucky, I had an R.E.M. song get into my head one long dark night in 1987. It started out letting me know I wasn't the only one aware that everything was going to change, but then after we had a few years together the numbness of futility was replaced with a strange peace of mind. The world doesn't end. The world as we know it...different story. Loved ones die, seasons change, strangers become friends, disasters strike, leaders change, cars break down, hairstyles change, things decay, fears get burnt away in the light of day, ice keeps melting, trees keep growing, the whole world changes every second, but the world itself doesn't end.

I wasn't going to include It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) in the moments of misspent youth, because the journey to get from mind-numbing fear to feeling fine requires a lot of misspent youth, but the song's neat, and I needed to put this all down in writing to commemorate all the times when the world as I knew it ended.

Tomorrow I'll get out of bed and start over again.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)