Posted in History & Literature

We Didn’t Start The Fire

We Didn’t Start The Fire is a song by Billy Joel outlining key historical events between 1949 and 1989. The “fire” refers to the criticism that the Baby Boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964), with Billy Joel rebutting that there has been turmoil and crises in world history forever and one generation cannot be blamed for it all.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray 
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

CHORUS
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

Josef 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 

CHORUS

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, 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 
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo 

CHORUS

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
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 

CHORUS

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
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 shores, China’s under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore 

CHORUS x 4

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