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

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"We Didn't Start the Fire" is annoying, "It's the End of the World as We Know It" isn't, therefore...

― Thunder Kitten, Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:12 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh but it is.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:16 (nineteen years ago) link

http://www.sunsquashed.com/cgi-bin/mp3.cgi

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.

― slb3, Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:25 (nineteen years ago) link

"We Didn't Start the Fire" isn't as annoying as "It's the End of the World as We Know It".

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:37 (nineteen years ago) link

Personally speaking, I find Joel's song just kinda desperate in a sort've "Look, I'm still relevant! Let's hear it for the `boomers!" sorta way (in the same cloying way as the Police's irritattingly self-congratulatory "Born in the 50's"). "It's the End of the World as We Know It," meanwhile, just comes across as fuckin' smug and pretentious (''oooh...look at how many public figures with the initials L.B. I can name!") That's nice that you feel fine about it, Michael, but I DIDN'T ASK! Fuck those guys.

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

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:44 (nineteen years ago) link

But, back to Joel for a second....

"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.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:47 (nineteen years ago) link

"It's the End of the World as We Know It" is a joke, "We Didn't Start The Fire" isn't.
"It's the End of the World as We Know It" wins.

― dan. (dan.), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:48 (nineteen years ago) link

Dan may have a point, there. I don't believe R.E.M intended their song to be taken so very deathly seriously, whereas Joel seems to so trying to make some sort've oh-so-earnest statement........like a dick.

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

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:50 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh god, that video...

― dan. (dan.), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:51 (nineteen years ago) link

It's The End of the World... is a great song....

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!

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 16:59 (nineteen years ago) link

I so love the word "choad".

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 17:04 (nineteen years ago) link

R.E.M. has stopped playing that song in their live sets

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.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 17:05 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm quite happy to choose between those. Worst = red (I have never experienced this but it might indicate something as serious as cancer, or bilharzia), followed by yellow and then black.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 17:52 (nineteen years ago) link

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

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

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 18:46 (nineteen years ago) link

Interestingly, they've been revisiting a lot of Monster/Hi Fi era music in the past few weeks.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 18:46 (nineteen years ago) link

Also: "Bad Day" predates "It's End of the World As We Know It." It's technically an early version.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 18:48 (nineteen years ago) link

The only BJ (haha, nice initials TOOL) song that bothers me nearly as much as "...Fire" is whichever one goes "IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, I GO WALKIN IN MY blah blah blah".

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 18:55 (nineteen years ago) link

Like it or not Alex, your moniker signifies that you should have at least some passing interest in Mr. Joel. Unless you're a transplant. Like it or not, the guy defines blue collar NYC from the mid 70s to the mid 80s.

― 57 7th (calstars), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 19:02 (nineteen years ago) link

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.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 20:05 (nineteen years ago) link

Oyster Bay, to be precise.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 20:06 (nineteen years ago) link

From the town known as Oyster Bay, Long Island
Rode a boy with a six-pack in his hand

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 20:08 (nineteen years ago) link

R.E.M. has stopped playing that song in their live sets

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.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 20:15 (nineteen years ago) link

The answer to the question is Hello by The Beloved.

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

― heywood jablomi (heywood), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 21:32 (nineteen years ago) link

Billy Joel should have his nuts smashed on an anvil by gnomes for inflicting this song upon me.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 21:36 (nineteen years ago) link

"We Didn't Start The Fire (Argh Argh Not My Eyes)"

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 21:37 (nineteen years ago) link

Hey, I found a song that's much worse!

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!

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 21:45 (nineteen years ago) link

Billy Joel should have his nuts smashed on an anvil by gnomes for inflicting this song upon me.

YEAH!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 21:52 (nineteen years ago) link

I wish that Billy Joel would really set himself on fire.

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

― Sara Sherr, Wednesday, 23 February 2005 01:00 (nineteen years ago) link

The relative inscrutability of the video is REM's get-out-of-jail-free card in this contest!

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 02:30 (nineteen years ago) link

The video for "We Didn't Start THe Fire" would be great if it featured Billy Joel being flayed alive by the cast of "Empty Nest" alternating with pictures of kittens.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 02:40 (nineteen years ago) link

has anyone mentioned how "We Didn't Start The Fire" had the lyrics changed in Ireland so it could become a cash-in on Italia '90?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 18:28 (nineteen years ago) link

Will Farrell, Tommy Franks, Ivory Coast, Low Blood Banks
Mad Cows all Chewed, Santana Still a Cool Dude

hahahahahahahahhahahahaha

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 18:52 (nineteen years ago) link

eight years pass...

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

― Beatrix Kiddo (Raymond Cummings), Saturday, 18 May 2013 20:41 (eleven years ago) link

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

― Michigan seems like a dream to me now (Treeship), Saturday, 18 May 2013 20:50 (eleven years ago) link

Ha ha

― Beatrix Kiddo (Raymond Cummings), Saturday, 18 May 2013 23:54 (eleven years ago) link

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..."

― Doctor Casino, Sunday, 19 May 2013 00:41 (eleven years ago) link

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

― Doctor Casino, Sunday, 19 May 2013 00:43 (eleven years ago) link

one month passes...

INDIE CRED

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

― This amigurumi Jamaican octopus is ready to chill with you (Phil D.), Tuesday, 25 June 2013 15:18 (ten years ago) link

Milo Greene Is The Joel Machine

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 25 June 2013 16:47 (ten years ago) link

ten years pass...

Matt H's history class story is incredible

― very sneaky cis (symsymsym), Thursday, 29 June 2023 04:14 (ten months ago) link

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