nonprophet.org.za

So, who remembers the last tune by Billy Joel? Ok, maybe not a tune then, but does anyone remember him?

If that name rings a bell, keep listening (or reading), you were probably born during the 70’s (late 70’s thanks) and grew up on a steady diet of pop-rock served up by Alex Jay and the other old folks from when 5fm was still called “Radio 5″. If not, then please keep moving, Ronald’s play-pen probably holds more nostalgia for you.

In any event, probably the most memorable Billy Joel tune of the 80’s has to be “We didn’t start the fire”, an account of historic events, mishaps and figures that affected the world in one way or another from 1949 to 1989. Of course 90% of the events and figures mentioned in the song, relate directly to american (note the small letters) culture.

So dig up those old tapes, the ones you used to record tunes from the radio with, memorise the words for the shower a lil later.

Harry Truman, Doris Day
Red China, Johnny 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

Maciano, 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

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

Chorus

Little Rock, Pasternak,
Mickey Mantle, Kerouac

Sputnik, Chou En-Lai,
Bridge On The River Kwai

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle,
California baseball

Starkweather homicides,
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, Eichman
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

For those that just have to have more Billy, please click this link to get a deeper explanation of the events mentioned above. Incidently, that website is probably about as old as the song.

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