Songfacts®:

• This is the title track of the eighth studio album by American rock band Eels. Recorded on an old four track tape machine by Eels leader Mark Oliver Everett in his Los Angeles basement, it's a "divorce album" in which Everett equates his personal loss with the loss of integrity in the world he's living in. End Times isn't Everett's first break-up album. His 1993 solo album Broken Toy Shop recorded under his recording name E chronicled the broken heart of a young man in his twenties. Noah and the Whale's 2009 album First Days of Spring dealt with a similar subject matter from the perspective of a 20-year-old. (check out "Blue Skies").
• In this song, after encountering a mentally disturbed homeless man proclaiming the oncoming end of the world, Everett continues a walk through the Los Angeles night. The "End Times" he speaks of isn't about "Mayan calendar conspiracy theory bulls--t," he explained in publicity materials, but, "the state of the desperate times we live in. The bottom line-ness of it all. The end of common decency. The loss of caring about doing a good job. These are tough times. Who can you trust? Walter Cronkite is just a ghost."