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

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

i don't even like Yo La Tengo much, but a friend made me listen to their live version of We Didn't Start the Fire (at the very end of the show linked to above) which J Blount mentioned, and i thought it was a truely brilliant and funny performance.

And giving shoutouts to Lester Bangs is not exactly ground-breaking.

"JFK, BLOWN AWAY..WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO SAY?"

Well, maybe YOUR POINT? I mean, simply citing the Kennedy was assassinated....and? Where do you stand on that issue, William? Pro? Against? Am I supposed to fetch you a hanky after you went to the trouble of living through such an experience? Get the fuck over yourself.

http://www2.msstate.edu/~els4/billyjoelvideopic.gif

Billy Joel is a ham-fisted choad. always has been always will be.*

*although I've always really dug Pressure and Allentown....I'm a Nylon Curtain kinda guy!

No, they just changed the words to something about a Bad Day.

which is more annoying, and why?

This is like asking people to choose between different shades of shit.

Actually, they haven't been playing that one much either. They were playing both every night on the 2003 tour.

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