We Didn't Start The Fire
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| "We Didn't Start the Fire" | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Single by Billy Joel | ||
| From the album Storm Front | ||
| Released | 1989 | |
| Format | 7" single, 12" single, CD | |
| Recorded | — | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 4:49 | |
| Label | Columbia Records | |
| Producer | Mick Jones, Billy Joel | |
| Chart positions | #1 US | |
| Billy Joel singles chronology | ||
| "A Matter of Trust" (1986) | "We Didn't Start the Fire" (1989) | "I Go to Extremes" (1990) |
"We Didn't Start the Fire" is a song by Billy Joel which chronicles 120 well-known events, people, things, and places widely noted during his lifetime, from 1949 to 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front. Joel explained that he wrote this song due to his interest in history; he commented that he would have wanted to be a history teacher had he not become a rock and roll singer. Unlike most of Joel's songs, here, the lyrics were written before the melody, owing to the song's somewhat unusual style. Nevertheless, the song was a huge commercial success and provided Billy Joel with his third Billboard #1 hit.
Contents
Historical items referred to in the song
The lyrics of "We Didn't Start the Fire" are essentially a chronological list of specific events, names, and places, beginning in Joel's year of birth. Stream of consciousness in style, the song could be considered a natural successor to songs such as "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", as it consists of a series of unrelated images in a quick-fire, half-spoken, half-sung vocal style.The following are the lists as they appear in the song's lyrics, though in the actual song they are occasionally punctuated by the chorus. Events from a variety of contexts, such as popular entertainment, foreign affairs, and sports, are intermingled, giving an impression of the culture of the time as a whole.
The song and video have been interpreted as a rebuttal to criticism of Joel's Baby Boomer generation, from both its preceding and succeeding generations, for being responsible for much of the world's problems. The song's title and refrain imply that the world has been in a frenzied and troubled state since his generation's birth.
- Harry Truman: is inaugurated as US president after being elected in 1948 to his own term; previously he was sworn in following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- Doris Day: enters the public spotlight with "My Dream Is Yours" and "It's a Great Feeling"; divorces her second husband.
- Red China: the Communist Party of China wins the Chinese Civil War, establishing the People's Republic of China.
- Johnnie Ray: signs his first recording contract with Okeh Records, although he won't become popular for another two years.
- South Pacific: the prize winning musical, opens on Broadway on April 7
- Walter Winchell: an aggressive radio and newspaper journalist credited with inventing the gossip column.
- Joe DiMaggio: injured early in the season DiMaggio made a comeback in June and led the New York Yankees to win the World Series.
- Joe McCarthy: the US Senator, gains national attention and begins his anti-communist crusade with his Lincoln Day speech.
- Richard Nixon: is first elected to the United States Senate.
- Studebaker: a popular car company, is beginning its financial downfall.
- Television: is becoming widespread (in black and white format) and becomes the most popular means of advertising.
- North Korea, South Korea: North Korea attacks South Korea on June 25, beginning the Korean War.
- Marilyn Monroe: soars in popularity with five new movies including The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve; attempts suicide after death of lover Johnny Hyde. Monroe also married for a time to Joe DiMaggio (the rhyme in the previous verse).
- Rosenbergs: alleged communists spying for the Soviet Union, begin their highly publicized trial on March 6.
- H-Bomb: is in the middle of its development as a nuclear weapon, announced in early 1950 and first tested in late 1952.
- Sugar Ray: (Robinson) the boxer obtains the world's Middleweight title.
- Panmunjeom: the border village in Korea is the location of truce talks between the parties of the Korean War.
- Brando: is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the first time for his famous role in A Streetcar Named Desire
- The King and I: the musical, opens on Broadway on March 29.
- and The Catcher in the Rye: a controversial novel by J. D. Salinger, is published.
- (Dwight D.) Eisenhower: First elected as U.S. president by a landslide.
- Vaccine: Jonas Salk privately tests the first polio vaccine.
- England's got a new Queen: Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
- (Rocky) Marciano: defeats Jersey Joe Walcott, becoming the World's Heavyweight Champion.
- Liberace: a musical entertainer with a popular 1950s television show.
- Santayana good-bye: philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist George Santayana dies on September 26.
- Joseph Stalin: dies on March 5, yielding his position as leader of the Soviet Union.
- (Georgy Maksimilianovich) Malenkov: succeeds Stalin for six months following his death.
- (Gamal Abdel) Nasser: as Muhammad Naguib's minister of the interior, Nasser acts as the true power behind the new Egyptian nation.
- and (Sergei) Prokofiev: the composer, dies on March 5, the same day as Stalin.
- (Winthrop) Rockefeller: moves to Arkansas, the state in which he will be elected Governor.
- (Roy) Campanella: a baseball catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, who receives the National League's Most Valuable Player award for the second time.
- Communist bloc: a group of communist nations dominated by the Soviet Union at this time.
- Roy Cohn: Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel; resigns and enters private practice with the fall of McCarthy
- Juan Perón: spends his last full year as President of Argentina before a September 1955 coup
- (Arturo) Toscanini: the famous conductor is at the height of his fame, performing regularly with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on national radio.
- Dacron: an early artificial fiber made from the same plastic as polyester
- Dien Bien Phu falls: the Vietnamese town falls to Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap, leading to the creation of North Vietnam and South Vietnam
- "Rock Around the Clock": Bill Haley and his Comets release the hit single "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock", spurring worldwide interest in rock and roll.
- (Albert) Einstein: dies on April 18.
- James Dean: achieves success with East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, gets nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and dies in a car accident on September 30.
- Brooklyn's got a winning team: Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series for the only time. (There is cheering in the background of the song during this line.)
- Davy Crockett: television series.
- Peter Pan: Disney's 1953 film based on the classic Peter Pan character becomes a hit.
- Elvis Presley: Elvis signs with RCA Records on November 21, beginning his pop career.
- Disneyland: Disney's first theme park opens on July 17.
- (Brigitte) Bardot: French sex symbol Bardot is popular internationally at this time.
- Budapest: the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
- Alabama: the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
- (Nikita) Khrushchev: makes his famous Secret Speech denouncing Stalin's "cult of personality" on February 23.
- Princess Grace (Grace Kelly): releases her last film High Society and marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
- Peyton Place: the best-selling novel by Grace Metalious is published.
- Trouble in the Suez: Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal on October 29, beginning the Suez Crisis.
- Little Rock: Orval Faubus stops the Little Rock Nine from attending Little Rock Central High School; Eisenhower deploys the 101st Airborne Division to counteract him.
- (Boris) Pasternak: the Russian author publishes his famous novel Doctor Zhivago.
- Mickey Mantle: the famous New York Yankees' outfielder is in the middle of his career, an American League All-Star for the sixth year in a row. Mantle was capable of getting to first base in three seconds.
- (Jack) Kerouac: publishes his first novel in seven years, On the Road.
- Sputnik: the first artificial satellite is launched on October 4.
- Chou En-lai: in the middle of his reign as Premier of the People's Republic of China.
- Bridge on the River Kwai: the film adaptation of the 1954 novel is released, receiving seven Academy Awards.
- Lebanon: Lebanon Crisis of 1958.
- Charles de Gaulle: during war of independence in Algeria, France's Fourth Republic collapses and de Gaulle is elected in November to lead the new Fifth Republic.
- California baseball: the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California and become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, becoming the first major league teams west of Kansas City.
- Starkweather homicide: the serial killer Charles Starkweather is at large, killing eleven people before he is caught.
- Children of thalidomide: sleeping aid and antiemetic, used to treat morning sickness as well, later found to cause birth defects, is for sale around the world, except America, where the FDA didn't allow it to be distributed.
- Buddy Holly: died in a plane crash on February 3 with Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson, "The Big Bopper".
- Ben-Hur: is an award-winning film set in Ancient Rome starring Charlton Heston.
- Space monkey: Able and Baker became the first living beings to successfully return to Earth from space aboard the Jupiter AM-18.
- Mafia: organized crime of an historically Sicilian/American origin is referred to as the Mafia. The Mafia Monograph, a detailed history of the sicilian mafia in the U.S., had been created by the FBI in 1958.
- Hula hoops: The hula hoop is invented in 1959 and becomes the latest fad.
- (Fidel) Castro: comes to power after a revolution in Cuba and visits the United States later that year on an unofficial twelve-day tour.
- Edsel is a no-go: the 1960 model of this marketing disaster has production cut short in November 1959.
- U-2: an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, causing the U-2 Crisis of 1960.
- Syngman Rhee: was rescued by the CIA after being forced to resign as leader of South Korea for allegedly fixing an election and embezzling more than twenty million U.S. dollars.
- Payola: was publicized due to Dick Clark's testimony before Congress and Alan Freed's public disgrace.
- and (John F.) Kennedy: beats Richard Nixon in the November 8 general election amongst allegations of vote fraud.
- Chubby Checker: popularizes the dance The Twist with his song of the same name.
- Psycho: an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, based on a pulp novel by Robert Bloch and adapted by Joseph Stefano, which becomes a landmark in graphic violence and cinema sensationalism. The screeching violins heard briefly in the background are a trademark of the film's soundtrack.
- Belgians in the Congo: The Democratic Republic of the Congo was declared independent of Belgium on June 30, with Joseph Kasavubu as President and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister.
- (Ernest) Hemingway: commits suicide on July 2 after a long battle with depression.
- (Adolf) Eichmann: is captured by Mossad agents in Argentina and tried for crimes against humanity.
- Stranger in a Strange Land: written by Robert A. Heinlein, is a breakthrough best-seller with themes of sexual freedom and liberation.
- (Bob) Dylan: after a New York Times review by critic Robert Shelton, Dylan is signed to Columbia Records.
- Berlin: The Berlin Wall, which separates West Berlin from East Berlin and the rest of East Germany, is constructed.
- Bay of Pigs Invasion: failed attempt by United States-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro.
- Lawrence of Arabia: the Academy Award-winning film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence starring Peter O'Toole premiers in America on December 16.
- British Beatlemania: The Beatles gain Ringo Starr as drummer and Brian Epstein as manager, and join the EMI's Parlophone label.
- Ole Miss: James Meredith integrates the University of Mississippi.
- John Glenn: flew the first American manned orbital mission termed "Friendship 7" on February 20.
- Liston beats Patterson: Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson fight for the world heavyweight championship on September 25, ending in a round-one knockout.
- Pope Paul (VI): is elected to the papacy.
- Malcolm X: makes infamous statements about agreeing with the Kennedy assassination, thus causing the Nation of Islam to censure him.
- British Politician Sex: the Profumo Affair.
- JFK blown away, what else do I have to say?: President Kennedy is assassinated on November 22.
- Birth control: in the early 1960s, oral contraceptives, popularly known as "the pill", first go on the market and are extremely popular. Griswold v Connecticut in 1965 challenged a Connecticut law prohibiting contraceptives. In 1968, Pope Paul VI released a document entitled Humanae Vitae which declared most birth control a sin.
- Ho Chi Minh: a Vietnamese Communist, who served as President of Vietnam from 1954–1969.
- Richard Nixon back again: Nixon is elected in the 1968 presidential election of the United States.
- Moon shot: refers to the Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing.
- Woodstock: famous rock and roll festival of 1969 that came to represent the epitome of the counterculture movement.
- Watergate: political scandal involving a hotel break-in, eventually leading to President Nixon's resignation in 1974.
- Punk rock: the Sex Pistols and their new sound become popular.
- (Menachem) Begin: becomes Prime Minister of Israel in 1977 and negotiates the Camp David Accords with Egypt's president in 1978.
- (Ronald) Reagan: incredibly popular two-term President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.
- Palestine: the Palestine Liberation Organization is admitted as a member of Arab League; see history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
- Terror on the airline: during the mid-80s, numerous aircraft hijackings were shown on the news.
- Ayatollahs in Iran: during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the West-backed and U.S.-installed Shah is overthrown as the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gains power after years in exile.
- Russians in Afghanistan: Soviet forces fight a ten-year war in Afghanistan, from 1979 to 1989.
- Wheel of Fortune: a hit television game show which has been TV's highest-rated syndicated program since 1983
- Sally Ride: in 1983 she becomes the first American woman in space.
- Heavy metal suicide: There is considerable debate among fans about whether this is intended to be interpreted as one or two items ("heavy metal, suicide"). On one hand, in the 1980s both Ozzy Osbourne and the band Judas Priest were brought to court by parents who accused the musicians of hiding subliminal pro-suicide messages in their music. On the other hand, "heavy metal" may be an isolated reference like "punk rock" above, and "suicide" merely in reference to some well-known suicide or trend of suicides reported at the time .
- Foreign debts: Persistent US trade deficits lead to substantial foreign debt in the eyes of the 1980s period, particularly to Japan.
- Homeless vets: Veterans of the Vietnam war are homeless and impoverished.
- AIDS: A collection of symptoms and infections in humans resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is first detected and recognized in the 1980s, on its way to becoming a pandemic.
- Crack: Refers to crack cocaine, a popular drug in the mid-to-late 1980s.
- Bernie Goetz: On December 22, 1984, Goetz becomes a vigilante after being mugged four times; he shoots four black youths who attack him on a New York City subway and was later acquitted on grounds of self-defense.
- Hypodermics on the shore: medical waste was found washed up on beaches in New Jersey after being illegally dumped at sea.
- China's under martial law: On May 20, 1989, China declares martial law, enabling them to use force of arms to end the Tiananmen Square protests.
- Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore!: soda giants Coke and Pepsi each run marketing campaigns using popular music stars to reach the young adult demographic.
Pop cultural references
- In 1990, WBZ-TV in Boston ran a sports clip show that recapped the 1980s of sports in Boston and its opening included a parody of "We Didn't Start the Fire" sung to the tune of Boston sports moments.[link]
- Although the song ranked #1 in the US, and #7 in the UK, Blender magazine ranked "We Didn't Start the Fire" #44 on its list of the 50 worst songs ever. "We Didn't Start the Fire" also appeared in the same spot on VH1's 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever, a collaboration with Blender in 2004.
- The song was used to humorous effect in "The Fire", an October 2005 episode of The Office, an NBC sitcom.
- A popular parody circulating around the Internet is "Pet Names for Genitalia", a song listing increasingly absurd euphemisms for "penis". Though commonly misattributed to "Weird Al" Yankovic or Tom Green, the true authorship of the parody--like so many Internet phenomena--is unknown.
- The Simpsons also did a parody of this song in the episode "Gump Roast" showing various stills from seasons 1-13 (the season of the show when it first aired) It relived popular moments in the show from "Mr. Plow" to Burns being "blown away." The title of this song is "They'll Never Stop The Simpsons".
- A Commercial for ran featuring "We Didn't Start the Series", a parody of "We Didn't Start the Fire", featuring Star Trek characters as the subject
- On Late Night with Conan O'Brien, We Didn't Start the Fire has been featured several times, as a random joke, normally when Conan states that "we don't have time for our normal arbitrary kind of comedy. Isn't that right, cactus chef playing We Didn't Start the Fire on the flute?"
- Coca Cola in Latin America launched a TV campaign about the 2006 FIFA World Cup, in which they use the score of this song like a chant.[link]
Statistics at a glance
- No. of singers and musical groups: 7 (Buddy Holly, Johnnie Ray, Elvis Presley, Liberace, Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, the Beatles)
- No. of health and medicinal references: 6 (polio vaccine, thalidomide, AIDS, cocaine, Birth control, "Hypodermics on the shore")
- No. of US presidents: 5 (Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan). Presidents who served during the timeframe of the song who are not mentioned are Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter.
- No. of US politicians mentioned who did not become President: 2 (Joe McCarthy, Nelson Rockefeller -- Roy Cohn doesn't count)
- No. of movies: 5 ("Bridge on the River Kwai", "Ben-Hur", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Psycho", "Peter Pan") (Coincidentally, two of these films, "Bridge", and "Lawrence", were directed by David Lean, and both starred Alec Guinness.)
- No. of Jews: 5 (Albert Einstein, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Bob Dylan, Menachem Begin)
- No. of technological products: 6 (television, hydrogen bomb, Dacron, Sputnik, "Moon shot", Edsel)
- No. of authors: 4 (Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Jack Kerouac, George Santayana)
- No. of actresses: 4 (Doris Day, Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Grace Kelly)
- No. of boxers: 4 (Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano, Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson)
- No. of Soviet leaders: 3 (Josef Stalin, Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov, Nikita Khrushchev)
- No. of novels: 3 ("The Catcher in the Rye", "Peyton Place", "Stranger in a Strange Land")
- No. of baseball players: 3 (Joe DiMaggio, Roy Campanella, Mickey Mantle)
- No. of baseball references: 2 ("Brooklyn's got a winning team", "California baseball")
- No. of musicals: 2 ("The King and I" and "South Pacific")
- No. of actors: 2 (Marlon Brando, James Dean)
- No. of television shows: 2 (Wheel of Fortune, Davy Crockett)
- No. of classical composers and conductors: 2 (Sergei Prokofiev, Arturo Toscanini)
- No. of astronauts: 2 (John Glenn, Sally Ride)
- No. of Civil Rights Movement references: 4 (Alabama, Little Rock, Ole Miss, Malcolm X)
- No. of Chinese references: 2 ("Red China", "China's under martial law")
- No. of Chinese leaders: 1 (Zhou Enlai)
- No. of Latin American leaders: 2 (Juan Peron, Fidel Castro)
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External links
- [Lyrics of "We Didn't Start the Fire"]
- [History Summary from 1949-1989 by Ron Kurtus]
- [The song with flash animation accompaniment]
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