[Michael Stipe]
That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes
An aeroplane, and Billy Joel is not afraid

[Verse 1: Michael Stipe and Billy Joel simultaneously]
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
(Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray)
World serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs
(South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio)
Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt, no, strength
(Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television)
The ladder starts to clatter with fear of height, down, height
(North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe)
Wire in a fire, represent the seven games
(Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom)
And a government for hire and a combat site
(Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye)
Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry
(Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen)
With the Furies breathing down your neck
(Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye)

[Chorus]
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(It was always burning since the world's been turning)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
And I feel fine
(No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it)
[Verse 2]
Team by team, reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped
(Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev)
Look at that low plane, fine, then
(Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc)
Uh oh, overflow, population, common group
(Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron)
But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself
(Dien Bien Phu Falls, "Rock Around the Clock")
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed
(Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team)
Tell me with the Rapture and the reverent in the right, right
(Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland)
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light
(Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev)
Feeling pretty psyched
(Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez)

[Chorus]
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(It was always burning since the world's been turning)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
And I feel fine
(No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it)
[Verse 3]
Six o'clock, TV hour, don't get caught in a foreign tower
(Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac)
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
(Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge On The River Kwai)
Lock him in uniform, book burning, blood letting
(Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball)
Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate
(Starkweather Homicide, Children of Thalidomide)
Light a candle, light a votive, step down, step down
(Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia)
Watch your heel crush, crush, uh-oh
(Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go)
This means no fear, cavalier renegade and steering clear
(U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy)
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies
(Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo)

[Chorus]
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(It was always burning since the world's been turning)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
And I feel fine
(No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it)
And I feel fine
(Space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia)
(Space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia)
(Space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia)
(Space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia, space monkey mafia)

[Verse 4]
The other night I dreamt a nice continental drift divide
(Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land)
Mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein
(Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion)
Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs
(Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania)
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!
(Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson)
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck
(Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex)
Right? Right!
(J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say?)

[Chorus]
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(It was always burning since the world's been turning)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
And I feel fine
(No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it)

It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(It was always burning since the world's been turning)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
And I feel fine
(But when we are gone it will still burn on, and on, and on, and on...)

It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(It was always burning since the world's been turning)
It's the end of the world as we know it
(We didn't start the fire)
And I feel fine
(No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it)
And I feel fine

(On, and on, and on, and on, and)
(On, and on, and on, and on, and)
(On, and on, and on, and on, and)
(On, and on, and on, and on, and...)