Another song. Another earworm.
This one was written by Billy Joel in 1989 when he was forty. He had had a contretemps with a much younger man who imagined that only his generation had it tough and people of Joel's age had had it easy. Joel bristled at this and the seeds of "We Didn't Start The Fire" were sown. I suppose he was attempting to say that in his life there had been many crises, many issues, famous people coming and going. The young man had been badly mistaken.
It is a fast-paced list song with references to 120 figures and events and places from post-war history. Not long after releasing the song, Billy Joel indicated some private irritation about it. He grew to dislike it but personally, I think that it is both clever and evocative as it quickly rolls out dozens of references to historical times and famous figures that are all familiar to me - and probably to you too.
Here are the lyrics so that you can sing along to the video that follows:-
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King and I, and The Catcher in the Rye
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana, goodbye
It was always burning since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser, and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, trouble in the Suez
It was always burning since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Zhou En-Lai, Bridge on the River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, space monkey, mafia
Hula-hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola, and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
It was always burning since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
It was always burning since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician Sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say?
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law
Rock-and-roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
It was always burning since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone, it will still burn on
And on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning
One of my favourite songs and I like your addition, BUT, after copy/paste/print I discovered you missed an entire verse, so now I have to google and copy/paste/print again, so I can relearn what I used to remember.
ReplyDeleteI will try to make amends Elsie. Thanks for the heads up as they say.
DeleteI see it has now been added, thank you.
DeleteI'd say that about 10 % of those references tell me nothing, but then of course I am slightly younger and grew up in Germany, where we naturally have our own set of country-specific references.
ReplyDeleteNot a Billy Joel fan myself, I passed on playing the video (last but not least because it is just gone 7:00 am in the morning and I am sitting here with the windows wide open and don't want to disturb my neighbours).
It just shows how closely British and American popular cultures are aligned. I understood almost all of those references - but not quite all of them.
DeleteLoved this, and your add on verse
ReplyDeleteThank you Marilyn... And you were mentioned in the first verse!
DeleteSo much effort went into this post, but I can't bear Billy Joel. My apologies.
ReplyDeleteWhat co-incidence! Billy Joel can't bear you either!
DeleteLove your new verse.
ReplyDeleteI like that song and have based a 10 round connections quiz on it. For the first nine questions the answer is one of the people mentioned. The. 10th question is what connects them all.
I did another round with people you appear on Sgt Pepper album cover.
Can I see your quizzes online? None of your listed blogs appear to be active.
DeleteI remember this song vividly. I think the fire represents what you stated, the out of control things that happen in the world, and the lurching from one world crisis to the next. I loved your 2026 version!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, British and American culture has a lot in common. If only back in the 1770s, the British would have allowed the colonists to elect representatives to Parliament, maybe the revolution would have never happened, and we'd be like Canada today with a parliamentary form of government with no orange menace as president.
The British government and King George III really screwed up there!
DeleteI like some of Joel's music, especially 'We Didn't Start The Fire' but wouldn't call myself a fan.
ReplyDeleteWould you call yourself an air conditioning unit?
DeleteI have always liked this song and they've been playing it more often on the radio these days.I had a friend in college who could sing all of the lyrics and we were always impressed by that!
ReplyDeleteWas that friend male or female Ellen?
DeleteThe song is a nice take on history. I wish I could learn it all, and then, would sing it to my granddaughter next time she blames my generation for the state of world that it is now in.
ReplyDeleteI've never been able to take Billy Joel but I appreciate this song. One of my pet peeves is the whole, "Okay, Boomer," thing. Sure, we're old now. But by god we did some things. And some of them were good and true. And not all of us are aging and raging old white people afraid of technology, watching FOX, and voting for the right wingers. Some of us still fight the fire.
ReplyDeleteI love this song, thanks for reminding of it. I like your version too, well done!
ReplyDeleteI've never heard this before, or perhaps I have and forgot it. I listened to a few others of his after this, too.
ReplyDeleteAny news of cro
ReplyDelete