"It's The End Of The World As We Know It" vs. "We Didn't Start The Fire": which is more annoying, and why?

Haha! My jr high social studies teacher made us listen to that in class too!

He also did a (in hindsight) very very questionable "slave auction" during our CIvil War chapter....other students could buy other students and make them carry their books and stuff....I was a slave...it was supposed to make us think about slavery in a new way, he said, but it seems very inappropirate in hindsight.

the wierd thing was that the slave auction used this paper money that he made....the money was small photocopies of 10 dollar bils but replaced the picture with Willie Nelson....our teacher was a huge huge Willie fan...had a picture of him up in the classroom.....

Maybe it should be required listening, just like "Pump pump pump a pump pump a pumps your blood" is required listening in Biology.

Bahahahahahahahahahahaha

Bahahahahahahahahahahaha

I don't get why people hate Stipe so much....seriously....he gets namechecked for death more than anyone....

That was never a hit here so when I first heard it I was all 'What the...martial drums, what IS all this?'

He also did a (in hindsight) very very questionable "slave auction" during our CIvil War chapter....other students could buy other students and make them carry their books and stuff....I was a slave...it was supposed to make us think about slavery in a new way, he said, but it seems very inappropirate in hindsight.

the wierd thing was that the slave auction used this paper money that he made....the money was small photocopies of 10 dollar bils but replaced the picture with Willie Nelson....our teacher was a huge huge Willie fan...had a picture of him up in the classroom.....

This sounds like the lyrics of Boceaphus' "If the South Woulda Won" come to life.

yeah except this was Minnesota...and I don't think he was like racist...just clueless...honestly he wasn't a bad guy....HS wrestling coach....His Willie obsession was HUGE though.

neilkulkarniinamouthingoffmatchyeahyeahyeahyeah
dubioususeof"you"inthatsentencetoo
btwloveyourwritingingeneralnoreally

Seriously, although both songs are nearly equally as repulsive now, the REM was at LEAST somewhat bearable when it came out.

I've defended certain Billy Joel works here in the past, but "We Didn't Start The Fire" is just unspeakable, esp. the video (which I've never even seen in full, just clips & stills; but as George Bernard Shaw said, "You don't have to eat a whole egg to know it's rotten.")

didn't that make the locker room a little awkward?

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen, team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing! Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it'll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself.
World serves its own needs, Marciano, Liberace, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right, right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched. Santayana goodbye.

hahahah

UFF DA!

"We Didn't Start the Fire" >>> "1985"

REM's is not really a list song, but a song cunningly delivered like a list!! Looks like the main listing bit is "Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs", grouped together for no better reason (??) than they share the initials LB!!! Which is borderline classic.

OR MAYBE: Breshnev > Khrushchev

the bio professor who heralded each test in her class with Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone," so as to alert us to the incipient worry of an exam.

This is just utterly superb Ned.

He also used to act out these weird sniper fantasies about people he hated. He would crouch down, hold his wooden pointer like a gun, and then simultaneously make a gunshot noise and lift the pointer up slightly to emulate the recoil. He did this several times throughout the year.

That REM song ain't so bad, but played too much so now it's just crap to me. "Stand is much better! Ha!

Back to the topic, much as I love Billy Joel, his song SUCKS ASS. But please allow me to be the first to bring the Simpsons into this thread...how can you talk about "It's The End Of The World.." and not mention this:

Leonoid whatsis name, Herman Munster Motorcade;
Birthday party cheetos, pogo sticks and lemonade;
You symbiotic stupid jerk,
That's right Flanders, I am talking about you!

Every time I hear "We Didn't Start The Fire" I just want Billy Joel to be singing "Kevin Percy Kevin Percy Kevin Percy Kevin Percy Kevin Percy Kevin Percy Keving Percy Kevin Percy Kevin Percy Kevin Percy" etc.

But only on this tour, though. They played it as the final song of the night on nearly every night of three consecutive world tours, and it was a set staple on the Green and Document tours.

Also, it was the first song at the Madison Square Garden show last year the day after Bush won a second term.

B.i.l.l.y. J.o.e.l. = Big Idiotic Lazy Larcenous Yapper Jumping On Eel Lovers

Well, for a start, Billy Joel is from LONG ISLAND, not NYC, so there goes your theory down the toilet, and I'm no transplant.

I have yet to see a single R.E.M. show where they don't play this song. And I've seen six or seven. As for reading lyrics off a sheet, Stipe always does that, and not just to this song. I find it a pretty innocuous affectation.

naw, it's Can You Dig It? by Pop Will Eat Itself!

Sample lyrics:

Gays Have a Marriage Ban, Troops in Afghanistan
May be an Angry Turk, Health Insurance is a Perk

Wedgewood, Baptist Church, Hurricanes, Google Search
Terrorists in New York, No one has to Go to Work!

YEAH!

What happened to that cute kid in the "End of the World" video? He must be like, 40 by now.

hahahahahahahahhahahahaha

Just dropped by to say that these two songs can still fuck off

I had turned forty. It was 1989 and I said "Okay, what's happened in my life?" I wrote down the year 1949. Okay, Harry Truman was president. Popular singer of the day, Doris Day. China went Communist. Another popular singer, Johnnie Ray. Big Broadway show, South Pacific. Journalist, Walter Winchell. Athlete, Joe DiMaggio. Then I went on to 1950 [...]. It's one of the worst melodies I've ever written. I kind of like the lyric though

Ha ha

Terrified by that ellipsis and the suggestion that he went through each year of the song in the same droning fashion. "...the pill, that was birth control. The Vietnam War - Ho Chi Minh. The '68 election, Richard Nixon back again..."

http://deadhomersociety.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/homersbarbershopquartet9.png

INDIE CRED

http://www.avclub.com/articles/milo-greene-covers-billy-joel,93875/

Milo Greene Is The Joel Machine

Matt H's history class story is incredible