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