R.E.M.

According to Knox legend. R.E.M. refer to Knox College in their song, "It's the End of the World as We Know It"-specifically the line "the other night I tripped at Knox".

It is commonly believed among Knox alums from the 1980's that R.E.M. partook in debauchery at the TKE house after their campus performances. "When R.E.M. was marketed as "the band you grew up with" in the mid-'90s, my immediate knee-jerk reaction was a renunciation of such a cynical appeal to nostalgia, but it was pretty much true. I went to school at Knox College in Illinois as R.E.M. was on the cusp of becoming popular outside of the circuit of college radio listeners and on into the mainstream. In fact, there's a line in "It's the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine" that mentions Knox College -- "tripped at Knox." Plenty of people can claim to have done that. But R.E.M. played on campus regularly until the year I went because Green had become a best-selling album and small liberal arts colleges in the Midwest were no longer part of the band's touring circuit." -Tom Murphy, edited from http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2011/09/rem-colorado-shows-peter-buck.php

Non-believers claim this lyric is actually, "the other night I dreamt of knives".