Remember the R.E.M. song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”? It’s been in my head recently. The track was released in November 1987, about a month before U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed an arms control treaty that set the stage for the end of the Cold War. Michael Stipe, the band’s frontman, has said the idea came to him after a deep sleep.