We Didn't Start The Fire

All are equal in the eyes of the Lord.

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia

i like to imagine 'space monkey mafia' is one thing

I was going to split each individual thing out on a seperate line but realized NO.

so many classic lines

i like having to choose them as a lot

so hard

TO FIND A GOOD ONE

I can't take it anymore

front-runner

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex

I like how Billy understands that there's such a thing as British polician sex.

I love how there are 30 lines representing something like 15 years (1948-63), and then only 8 lines for the remaining 26 years.

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex

for rhyming those last two

xp!

yeah i voted for i can't take it anymore

jaymc, the point is that the boomers didn't start the fire, that the boomers didn't stop it is just a passing acknowledgement.

If "CHILDREN OF THALIDOMIDE!!!" was separate I'd probably vote for that

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

This one is kind of poignant.

as it is I'm stuck between "rock'n'roller cola wars" "dylan, berlin, bay of pigs invasion" and "JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?!?!!"

"Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz"

so good!

but i voted for JFK with no second thought

This song should just be "Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide" 74 times in a row.

edsel is a no-go

AIDS/Crack is pretty great

Actually, I think that's a Front Line Assembly B-side. xpost to myself.

Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
may have the best rhyme, but i think i'm voting Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron

Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock

I mean, this line alone is like 1969-77 (sure, you could argue that punk started earlier, but the next line begins with Begin, who became prime minister in 1977 and is probably in there for his role at the Camp David Accords of 1978, anyway).

Chubby Checker/Psycho is great because in the real song, you hear the Hitchcock strings for a second or two and it makes the song even scarier.

It's kind of astonishing when you look at the lyrics and remember the awful awful music to which they are set.

I can't believe I've never done this at karaoke yet. I did "Modern Woman" a month ago, though!

I think we've all done modern woman.

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia

^^^^^

yeah where's the shred solo? after JFK, right?

I went for "J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say". It's cheap and lazy, like the rest of the song.

Who will be the asshole who creates the "American Pie" poll?

isn't it a keyboard solo/breakdown?

keyboards can shred dogg!

TRUE^^^^^^^

Now I wish I could vote for the guitar fill that follows "thalidomide"

x-post!

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy

i wish i had speakers at work, i would do nothing for the rest of the day except listen to this song/watch the video

Who will be the asshole who creates the "American Pie" poll?

This sounds like a dare!

British Beatlemania

The first time I heard this song was at the barber shop. I was 10 years old and thought that it was like the best thing ever. "He's just saying random stuff!"

the doubling of the "ands" in line 6 is rather awkward

I totally owned Storm Front back in elementary school

shit was deep

I wish I could change my screen name to "Space Monkey Mafia".

da croupier, it's cool. i too, once sailed the cheesy seas on the Downeaster Alexa.

"Santayana goodbye" always gave me a lol/fantasy of killing Joel.

LOVE the "Get a Life" episode where Chris Elliott is stuck upside down on rollercoaster for hours, making up new verses to this.

If I had the know-how I'd do a dub remix of the song, slowing the vocal waaaaaaaay down. The vocal is pretty monotonous so I bet it would scare small kids etc.

I wish I could change my screen name to "Space Monkey Mafia".

Sweet sugar cane, on my brain
I don't wanna, I don't wanna Go insane

Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Is this one of those "one of these things is not like the other" tests?

marilyn MONROE

doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

I really wanna do a "second verse of Kid Rock's American Bad Ass" poll now

This is one of the most insidious songs ever written, isn't it.

correct. the question is: is it worse than Piano Man? I say yes.

I'm sure this got Billy a history chair at Nassau Community College

I'm amazed he hasn't written a sequel yet.

after this and But Seriously, boomers lost the script on some MTV Unplugged shit. They stopped trying to stop the fire, and I'll never forgive them.

Who will be the asshole who creates the "American Pie" poll?

-- John Justen, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 19:37

My Sociology of Pop Music professor spent 1.5 hours going over EVERY SINGLE REFERENCE in the song today.

more like Suckiology of Pop Music

The time between The End Of The Innocence and that fucking Eagles Hell Freezes Over? THAT was the death of music that mattered.

Ever since posting this, I have been humming "doo doo-doo-doo doo-doo DOO" to myself.

If I had the know-how I'd do a dub remix of the song, slowing the vocal waaaaaaaay down. The vocal is pretty monotonous so I bet it would scare small kids etc.

-- Euler, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 7:43 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

screw and chop this shit and it would be probably something amazing

Anthony, how are you not voting for Rock and Roller cola wars? You bring that up at least once a month.

ha i never realized "Richard Nixon back again" was a callback to a Nixon mention in the first verse

Why did the lyrics stop before the mid 80s?

this is one of at least four or five songs that has my name in it

where is "I hate this song and I want to die" option

DEEEEEEEY lin
BUUUUUUUHR lin

would nixon have appreciated being mentioned twice?

BAY OF PIGS INVAZJHEEEEEYIN

xpost

SHAKEY MO RIP

I'm afraid "Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion" was the one I went for immediately, without even thinking about it. God help me.

for the ultra-flat delivery, of course

I went with my hometown, though we're mentioned because of some rather nasty events. I just like how he sings it, all exasperated by that point"

Little ROCK! PASTERNAK! Mickey Mantle, KEROUAC!

"Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide" is the one that grabbed me the most--this one's for "mah schweet Saytun," y'all. The aids/crack follow-up for 2nd place.

Surely it is "Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, Suicide" as in Vega and Rev, yes?

Trouble in the Suez, for its out-of-the-blue growly delivery.

What exactly is this fire anyway? Was it really caused in part by The King and I, Hoola Hoops, and Brooklyn having a winning team?

I frequently defend ("...The Indefensible") Joel; but wow, those are awesomely awful aren't they? But I actually do quite like "Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye" for sounding like a '65-vintage Dylan lyric. (Also reads like a great title for a way-short-lived high-concept sitcom depicting the zany exploits of the four individuals in question.)

Someone should link to the thread where we made up our own lyrics. (Guess I'll look for it...)

Found it

I can't take it anymore

front-runner

-- dmr, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 19:29 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Too true..

Wasn't there a line about REM in the original?

Actually, the entire thing sounds like the work of a lobotomized Dylan to me--and that's very likely what makes it such a "great" piece of cheesy folk-pop determinism.

xp

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e8/Mac_Tonight.PNG/200px-Mac_Tonight.PNG

J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

lol @ billy's idea of subtle intimation

Have we even mentioned the video yet?

Neil Diamond did this a lot better on "Done Too Soon"

There was an Irish cash in version of this done by The Memories, with all the people being members of Ireland's Italia 90 world cup team. Famously, when playing Ireland around then Joel sang more than none of this instead of his song.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(The_Memories_song)

OK, so I fucked up the link. Cuntpaste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(The_Memories_song)

oh wait, the link mysteriously excludes the last ) for no obvious reason.

anyway, as you where - back to Billy Joel.

Don't blame yourself DV

Surely it is "Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, Suicide" as in Vega and Rev, yes?

I always thought it was "heavy metal suicide." This was the age when Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were being held responsible for such things, remember.

It would have been nice, though.

I had to google Sally Ride because of this thread.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/68/SallyRide.jpeg

I think I've spotted where she hides her dildo.

It breaks up on re-entry.

I bet she thought Mustang Sally was about her.

Yeah, unfortunately she only got this old codswallop from Billy Joel.

Why did the lyrics stop before the mid 80s?

Because the song came out in 1989?

When Diana died Billy and Elton did a coin flip to decide whether it'd be "Candle In The Wind '97" or "We Didn't Start The Fire '97."

http://patsajak.ytmnd.com/

we need to track down an a cappella of this shit mach stat

Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez ain't so bad either.

we need to track down an a cappella of this shit mach stat

YES YES YES YES YES

Or I could record myself chanting the lyrics...?

that would also be fucking awesome

There's a great 12" inversion produced by Trevor Horn, with string arrangements by Anne Dudley and a Holly Johnson cameo; he sings the JFK line.

Q: What is "the fire"

you should start all your posts with Q:

Then your handle would make sense

Q: Will someone answer the question?

(my handle comes from my wife, who is known around here as quincie. heh heh get it?)

no.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fire_%28Seinfeld_episode%29

http://pomomusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/billyjoel.jpg

I kind of like this song.

i don't know if anyone has really thought about this, but, you know what? this song is horrible.

ha xp

Synthesized slap bass

I wish I had voted for "Belgians in the Congo" because he gets all growly on that part.

The cola wars are the straw that finally breaks the camel's back.

That's when he can't take it any more.

The song and video have been interpreted as a rebuttal to criticism of Joel's Baby Boomer generation, from both its preceding and succeeding generations, that they were responsible for much of the world's problems.[citation needed] The song's title and refrain imply that the frenzied and troubled state which others were criticizing had been the state of the world since long before his generation's time, but that this was (perhaps wilfully) being ignored by their critics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq3PVHVn0kE

wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune wheeloffortune

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex

JFK for sure though.

he got blown away

re-reading this I realize I have no fucking clue what at least a third of these things refer to. I suppose I didn't read a lot of newspapers in the seventies.

This song >>>>>>>>>>>> "American Pie"

rong

re-reading this I realize I have no fucking clue what at least a third of these things refer to. I suppose I didn't read a lot of newspapers in the seventies.

rong

-- Mr. Que, Thursday, November 1, 2007 4:23 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^ RONG

POLL

For one thing, it's like one-tenth as long as "American Pie."

*the music is worse
*the delivery of the singer sounds like musical vomit

WHICH SONG ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

also, start the poll

talking about the song about the fire. i will now start the poll

we didn't start the poll

but we tried to fight it

Which song is worse American Pie or We Didn't Start The Fire

I'm quite partial to both of them, if truth be told

The drug dealer, what's his name, Manuel Noriega

this song would be a lot better if he changed the chords in the chorus

.

There is no valid "We Didn't Start The Fire" thread without the requisite screenshot of Billy Joel in the "We Didn't Start The Fire" video wearing sunglasses staring at the camera pounding his fists on a table in orthogonal formation with, get this, two lit torches of fire on each side of him.

Who the fuck is/was Pope Paul? Did he have Pol Pot in there at one point and change it maybe?

I had to google him too.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/Paul_sextus.jpg

Not sure where he hides his dildo.

I used to love the "Wayne's World" review of Oliver Stone's JFK where they just shrug "blown away...what else to I have to say?"

it's pretty weird to think that this song came out when I was 7, and was possibly around the time I was learning who JFK was.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

haw

Some friends and I used to riff on this song, but updated to include 90s/00s references.

All I remember is:

Richard Pryor/Hair on fire
MC Hammer/Email spammer

One noxious mf of a song, "We Didn't Start The Fire" is.

9/11, Anthrax Scare
Global warming polar bear

Gary Condit Y2K
Kozmo Flooz and eBay

scooty libby oink invites
people cavemen's on tonight

JFK
Blown away
Come again another day

9/11, Anthrax Scare
Britney has no pubic hair

Homo sex, Larry Craig
Where the hell is Al Haig?

CHILDREN OF THE FEDERLINE

coda: I have a dream (we didn't start the fire part 2)

Tragedies of Kennedys, refugees, AIDS disease
photos of Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and Kosovo
Tim McVeigh, Saddam Hussein, the bombing of the World Trade
hostages in Bosnia, atrocities, South Africa,
abortion and Kevorkian, Vietnam, napalm,
Lady Di, and Lennon died a violent crime, Columbine,
"I have a dream that one day..." Rodney King, O.J.,
symbols of our lifes and times, "One giant leap for mankind"

beanie babies, kenneth starr
phantom menace and jar jar

cd's, napster, mp3
metallica in therapy

global warming, hurricanes
lolcats driving me insane

chaki's is the best, imo

colbert/stewart 2008
while mark foley masturbates

CHILDREN OF THE FEDERLINE

ftw

</hoos>

eric cartman homer marge
'who's johnny' by el debarge

Susan Smith Tim McVeigh
Ellen comes out as a gay

um...

8080 album art
i can't make my face a heart

"Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock"=bridge

I completely missed the fact that this poll ended!

The only appropriate winner, though.

C/D MY HISTORY PROFESSOR IS PLAYING THIS IN CLASS RIGHT NOW ON YOUTUBE

c: this song is better than history lecture

d: ARGH THIS SONG IS SO AWFUL

Contribute our insights.

"you just listened to your study guide for the 1950s and 60s"

i'm assuming this is a joke.

ok this song rules btw

TS CHILDREN OF THE FEDERLINE vs "Global warming polar bear"

ok this song rules btw

― gabbneb, Thursday, May 8, 2008 12:39 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

WTF

he had to go

yes ... great song
http://img165.imageshack.us/my.php?image=minipoop.jpg

J0rdan never told us if he passed his class.

there's some indian version of the song that i like a lot better because you can't tell what the guy is saying

JFK
Blown away
Come again another day

Cracked me up.

imagine how many rhymes BJ could pick from for "subprime"

Ryan started the fire.

maybe i meant it was hilariously bad ;)

I am getting dragged to see this muggins and an equally washed up English dwarf in "concert." Some of some 176 keys will be presumably be struck.

(too many "be"s)

"space monkey mafia" was totally robbed

I just cracked myself up singing the song in the order ILX voted it in. It gets clumsy occasionally (the climaxes aren't resolved without the chorus), but in terms of stupid shit to do while working from home? A+.

(The College Humor version, We Didn't Start The Flamewar, is moderately amusing, but mostly to all my buddies who were really into Joel the first time around.)

in some sense this song redeems the existence of billy joel

Does anyone have the lyrics for the cover by The Memories that was all about Irish football?

My friend was singing along to his song in the car last night but not really words, more like, 'muhna mnnhummm mnnhuh' sounds. But the thing was she was doing this along with the CHORUS, the rest of the song she didn't even try. God I love her.

'hmmm hummnah nnn-hmm hmm-nnnmmm
hmm..uh...world's been hmm-hmm'

If this thread had been revived last week, I'd have done a hell of a lot better on the Sporcle quiz.

Bacon, Reagan, Palestine

Chubby Checker, Psycho
Belgians in the Congo

http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/183/t14946378psycho.jpg

This was like my first favourite song.

Totally woukd've went with CHILDREN OF THALIDOMIDE

Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom

^^ underrated

He needs to do a live 10-minute version of this with updated verses.

iPod, Britney Spears, Y2K chaos fears

Yeah but that would remove the Baby Boomer context that makes this song all the more loathsome.

Dyyl'n brrl'n bowl'n bowl'n

Diamondbacks, Anthrax, Interpol, Sniper Attacks

Iraq, Bush is back, Economy Sunk

Operation Dumbo Drop

Jackie Charlton, Eoin Hand
Johnny Giles, Ireland
Mick McCarthy, Stephen Staunton
Cascarino
Tony Galvin, Niall Quinn
Packie doesn't let em in
North of Ireland
South of Ireland
Only one can go

Paul McGrath, Back Four
Aldridge got another score
World Cup
English Clubs
Kevin Moran and the Dubs
European Championship
How can we forget the trip
Andy Townsend, Kevin Sheedy
Stapleton's a supersub

We're gonna start a fire
And when Rome is burning
there'll be no returning

We're gonna start a fire
We have Jack to mind us
and the fans behind us

Butragueño, Hungary
We scared the Dutch in Germany
Charlie Hurley, Liam Tuohy
Opel Invest
Ray Houghton, Liverpool
Ronnie Whelan's so cool
O'Leary in the Sunday World
Con is in the press

Stuttgart was no dream
now we have a winning team
Billy Bingham, Budapest
Man of Magic, Georgie Best
Eamon Dunphy writes it down
Dalymount to Landsdowne
English Football in a mess
Trouble on the Terraces

We're gonna start a fire
And when Rome is burning
there'll be no returning

We're gonna start a fire
We have Jack to mind us
and the fans behind us

Dasayev, Sócrates,
Maradona, Ardiles,
Puskás, Bessonov,
René van de Kerkhof,
Hamilton, Jim Magee,
Saint And Greavsie on TV,
Maradona, Hand of God
Brady should be in the Squad

Chris Morris, score draw
Don Givens, Denis Law,
Eusebio, Junior, Ronnie Whelan Senior
Pelé #10
We'll never see his like again
Goikoetxea's meaner
Champions, Argentina

We're gonna start a fire
And when Rome is burning
there'll be no returning

We're gonna start a fire
We have Jack to mind us
and the fans behind us

Netherlands, Egypt
England got a free trip
Pleaded, Seeded
Because of their supporters
Ruud Gullit might be out
Holland wouldn't have a shout
Hoddle and Waddle
Have they got the bottle?
We have England in the draw
And the Dutch like before
One thing that we're grateful for
We didn't get the Mafia

We're gonna start a fire
And when Rome is burning
there'll be no returning

We're gonna start a fire
We have Jack to mind us
and the fans behind us

Seeded in Sicily
Off the coast of Italy
6 hour boat trip
We can take the hardship
But the fans couldn't care
They can travel anywhere
No one else can match the sound
Our supporters bring around
June 11, English Game
We can do the trick again
Egypt next and then the Dutch
Its the second round for us
When we finally get to Rome
No one will be left at home
Aldridge is about to score
Listen to the Irish Roar

We're gonna start a fire
And when Rome is burning
there'll be no returning

We'll bring the Sam Maguire
We have Jack to mind us
and the fans behind us

^ The first single I ever bought btw.

What exactly is this fire anyway? Was it really caused in part by The King and I, Hoola Hoops, and Brooklyn having a winning team?

I always sort of wondered about this.

Yeah, I mean, if the premise of the song is "boomers weren't the first to fuck up the world, it goes back at least as far as Harry Truman" I guess I get that... but as my friend put it, "Why would you try to fight Chubby Checker?"

You know, the sound of the syllables is really great on this, and it could be a genuinely cool song if Joel had stuck closer to the premise: not saying we Boomers are any great shakes, but just to be clear, we got all rebellious because the world as delivered to us was already fucked up, divided and violent. Not a Forrest Gump "journey through the postwar decades!" history, but a preemptive strike against easy "Greatest Generation" valorization of the graying technocrats, warmongers and consumerist policymakers that set the terms of the postwar struggles and were still hanging around in positions of real power. It gets totally garbled up by including all these boomer-era pros and cons and/or pleasant bequests from older generations (is Buddy Holly really so destructive? Toscanini?), but then, it'd be hard to purge some of those rhymes once they'd made it in.

Easily one of the greatest songs of all time

How many people in 2014 remember (or ever knew) who Bernie Goetz is?

I do, but only thanks to that one Doonesbury storyline where Mike blunders into a media circus after a subway altercation.

http://i.imgur.com/qf0vb6S.jpg

Yesssss.....

https://twitter.com/BillyJoel_Bot

Even better because I found it by combing through my work twitter's RT's.

lol at yr previous revive

ILX Phrases That Stick In Your Mind

shit is this *chronological*? i had no idea.

It jumps back and forth a few years here and there, and sometimes confuses by invoking somebody's death date, but yeah.

ha clarity. that's why i never noticed.

just spent 20 minutes looking up Bernie Goetz. still no idea if he 'did it' or not.

Now there's a fun afternoon project: Rearrange the lyrics, but keep the beat and rhyme.

Harry Mantle, Stalin X, Mafia, Chubby Goetz
Hula bomb, Moonstock, British Beatle monkey sex

BELGIANS IN THALIDOMIDE

"'Britney Spears' waffles" search yielded no worthwhile results, very surprised by this.

Did find this though.

http://i.imgur.com/E3KGBoX.jpg

how could you not realize this was chronological?

@we_didnt_start

I spent way too many years wondering who the 'Children of the Little Mind' were (see also 'Bacon Regan').

lol, "Children of the Little Mind" is SO close to being the title of a 1965-era Serious Adult Nonfiction Publication that became synonymous with an era/concern/issue, and thus got namechecked in "We Didn't Start The Fire."

Old Mist Junglin'
TROUBLE IN THE SEWERS

my childhood spoof (warning: very funny!)

Superman and Lois Lane
Spider-Man and Mary Jane
Harry, Larry, Barry, Gary
Jerry, Cary, Billy Zane

and the only other part I still remember:

Nair, achy breaky hair, mullet, the electric chair

It’s been long enough that someone could do a “Millennial” version/update, starting where the original left off.

(Note: I am not actually advocating this idea)

a couple days before i faked speaking in tongues, a man in a sport coat stood in front of me and hundreds of other young teens and played a parody/cover of this song titled "we're gonna read the bible"

god i fucking hate this song

Boy, now that would be a hard one.

Sons of Simeon, Jemuel, and Jamin,
Ephraim and Manasseh
Ahisamach, Aholiab
Shelumiel, the son of Zurishaddai

My friend just saw him on a lark at MSG and live-streamed (so to speak) the walk from his seat to the bathroom when Billy started this song.

It was always burnin', sister.
World's been turnin'.

took me a minute to realise msg didn't refer to monosodium glutamate there

or did it

a couple days before i faked speaking in tongues, a man in a sport coat stood in front of me and hundreds of other young teens and played a parody/cover of this song titled "we're gonna read the bible"

karl i'm so sorry

There are also things in the song that I heard correctly but contextualized incorrectly, such as 'Chubby Checker (Psycho)' (suggesting that Chubby had severe mental instability) and 'Hula Hoops Castro' (presumably the daughter of Fidel).

'non sequitur list of things set to unengaging music' is a severely underutilized songwriting form imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rsmq4oJaiM

'non sequitur list of things set to unengaging music' is a severely underutilized songwriting form imo.

― Not with a bang but a MAGA (Old Lunch)

not by roger waters!

Hyperloop
Fash bro
Incel is a no go

no votes for leonard bernstein, leonid brezhnev, lenny bruce and lester bangs, hmm.

hear me out. what if .. we did start the fire?

or it pretty much went out and we re-started it

i wish this song were called "Moments in Time"

What if this had been one of those songs like "The Horse" by Cliff Nobles where the instrumental was more famous than the side with the lyrics.

People would hear it at a football game and go, "Ever hear the version with the lyrics? It's really weird."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g04jLd1b_mo

I know like a thousand times more about the history and culture of the 20th Century than I did when this song came out and I still don't understand like a quarter (maybe even a third) of these lyrics.

THANK YOU. Its so wild that "cola wars" is what makes Billy Joel upend that table in the music video https://t.co/6kKkPQxq1w

— 🍓 Camellia-Berry Grass 🍓 (@theCBGrass) June 18, 2021

I’m sure he wrote it that way on purpose – it ends the rant on a note of irony/satire. Try ending it with a different line (e.g., “Hypodermics on the shore”); it sort of falls flat.

lol, i can remember some talking head on "I Love The 80s" making basically the same observation back in 2002. but maybe this points the way towards the best way of sequelizing/updating WDSTF: start with rock-n-roller cola wars, and go up to "I Love the 80s."

Betty Crocker
Ministry
At Toys 'R' Us, a shopping spree
Nipsy Russell
Mr. Whipple
Tootsie Roll Pop
Spaceballs
Madballs
Hot Sam's in every shopping mall
Daisy Fuentes
Crazytown
Gino Vanelli wants to stop

Can anyone tell me what Prokofiev did to be included in this litany of touchstones?

Wikipedia obliges:

Sergei Prokofiev, a popular Russian composer, dies.

Now tell me what baseball did

Did it start a fire

i think "california baseball" refers to some teams moving to california. pretty flimsy/minor imo.

I think Billy is talking about the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moving to California. For a New York guy, that might have been epochal. (Honestly never clicked for me that for a span, New York had *three* baseball teams!)

Wouldn't it be funny if, after he dies, it's revealed that Billy Joel *did* start the fire, and the song was just mischievous misdirection?

The list of Billy's accomplices remains incomplete, but I for one am shocked by his willingness to involve Keith Flint, then still a minor, in such matters as terror on the airlines and "Wheel of Fortune."

Also, young Drew Barrymore.

Gavin Rossdale admitted his involvement in a Razorblade Suitcase deep cut.

this song would have been better if Billy Joel had just listed all of the people that had aggrieved him in his life

isn't that everyone who isn't billy joel

Tuna salad
Ham on rye
With a pickle on the side
Patty melt
BLT
Cantaloupe and cottage cheese
Meatloaf
Open-faced
Corned beef, if you like the taste
Your choice of salad,
Soup or fries
And a beverage of any size

We're eating at a diner
Oh, we've heard such good things
From Estelle and Irving

Eat your heart out Weird Albert

I think lines like “California baseball” and “Wheel of Fortune” are good, b/c it gives you a sense of the 20th Century piling up, and creates a whiplash btw the historic and the banal (and he ends on the banal: cola wars).

Don’t know why I’m playing mr. save-a-fire this weekend, lol.

You’re so right, though, that having it build to banal “cola wars” instead of “needles on the shore” makes it a pop song.

"British politician sex" sounds like the most awkward, stilted, worst imaginable kind of sex.

JFK, blown away

L'Oreal, hair's gone grey

two of the biggest teams in america's only sport of the 1950s® moving from new york to california was huge! not just for the sport but as a symbol of postwar capitalism, there's a reason bernie cites the dodgers moving as his great socialist origin story

arguably a bigger deal than the other 50 baseball references in the song

okay, actually, i'll buy that! shorthand for the whole sunbelt shift, military-industrial boom in socal specifically, etc. something the video is "about" more than the song is, but the signpost is there.

For the longest time I think I thought 'Hula Hoops' Castro was the name of some sports figure with whom I was unfamiliar.

hahahahahahahahaha that's wonderful

I'd love to read a really good book about the Cola Wars. There must be one i'm sure..

Always struck me as odd that Billy thought suicide was invented in the 80s.

Unless he's talking about the band?

He's talking about the combination of fountain drinks.

Other lyrics I misunderstood as a dumb kid:

'Alabama, Krushchev' as 'Alabama cruise jet'
'trouble in the Suez' as 'trouble in the sewage'
'children of thalidomide' as 'children of the little mind'
(I thought 'Space Monkey Mafia' was like a gang or something)
'Payola and Kennedy' as 'KOA a Kennedy' (presumably something about taking a Kennedy camping?)
'Begin, Reagan' as 'Bacon Reagan' (maybe like a roadside attraction featuring a life-sized Ronnie made of bacon)
'AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz' as 'AIDS, crack, Bernie gets' (a weirdly-constructed lyric about someone named Bernie who both contracted AIDS and procured some crack)
'China's under martial law' as 'China's under Martian law'

And then there were lines where I thought he was basically just scatting (whatever 'dim bim foo faw' was).

all excellent

i assumed the suicide thing is "heavy metal suicide," like something to do with the churchy panic about heavy metal driving teens to bad ends etc.

yeah, the Ozzy Osbourne song "Suicide Solution" and the related case I think, or Judas Priest "Better by You, Better Than Me" trial

Yes - check out the song’s Wikipedia page… it details every reference.

get the gun
get the gun
SHOOT
SHOOT
SHOOT

that lawyer was such a clown

This song is irredeemable shit, but it could be worse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_16Ws1vYoc0

song is irredeemable shit
could be worse, couldn't it?
compact discs, Chex Mix
Pee Wee's Playhouse rocks

I have to stop searching for these, this fucking song is a transmissible disease

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-hy715XWeY

Think I would recast my vote for "Birth control, Ho Chi Minh"

How exactly was this song received by non-American listeners? Wikipedia claims it charted in the UK.

From my UK youth, I just remember it as being another quirky list song, though none of us knew exactly what Joel was trying to get at with 'starting the fire'.

Remember being baffled however by the references to 'Dacron' and 'Starkweather homicide'.

Yeah, a big hit here. Enough "world" and "British" references to fly, the "US local" ones pass by at speed.

Xpost

Yeah I was a pre-teen in Britain when this dropped and was really into it for a bit. My mum was a big fan of his. I remember learning about eg Bay of Pigs years later in secondary school and piecing things together from it which was cool.

🔥 We Didn't Start the Fire 🔥 Tomorrow 🔥 pic.twitter.com/zlON4uSEDv

— Fall Out Boy (@falloutboy) June 27, 2023

So glad I don't live in Hawaii, or I'd be up all night!

i like to imagine 'space monkey mafia' is one thing

― and what, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 3:26 PM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

we should poll these. the guy who does the shift after me a couple of days a week is named Castr0, he has no idea why i call him 'Hula Hoops'

what is this bullshit

terrible

luv FOB but yeah makes weezer's africa look like the rite of spring

WDSTF was in rough chronological order. That was kind of the point. This one is all “Waco, Qanon, Y2K, Snoop Dogg”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rsmq4oJaiM

who gets blown away in this one

Just what the world needed: MORE of this terrible song

Donald Trump's tiny hands, COVID, meth, Julian Sands

xxpost Shinzo Abe

I’m not joking

Fall out boy racking their brains for 40 seconds trying to figure out what rhymes with George Floyd before finally settling on Metroid pic.twitter.com/4WOEYYLOM0

— John Halo (@EpicMasterChief) June 28, 2023

I might have gone with something like "Bamiyan Buddhas get destroyed," seeing as how they weren't even trying to put things in sequence.

One can make up rhymes all day, the artistry (such as it is) is being choosy.

Wildfires, Lilibet, is Donald Trump in prison yet, Vladimir Zelensky, everybody's mask-free, Tina Turner, where's the beef, Ed Sheeran's not a thief. That took me far less than 40 seconds.

Tik Tok, Planet Rock, Hunter Biden, Poop Sock; Snowden, Melania, Trump has diarrhea.

Sorry, “where's the beef” is an ‘80s reference. (See, it’s harder than it looks!!)

The original covered 40 years so this one is really jumping the gun.

Ok fine morrisp, sub in "fake beef."

Low bar, easy rhymes, we'll be done in seconds time; bad song, sing along, take a hit from the bong.
No end, once again, let them ask what happens next; GPT wrote this for me, couldn't be more easy.

I did ask Chat GPT to "write a new version of We Didn't Start the Fire," and it spit this out:

Antarctica, melting ice, climate change's deadly vice,
Greta Thunberg takes the stage, rallying for a world engaged,
Pandemic strikes, COVID's reign, global lockdown, lives in pain,
Vaccines bring a glimmer of hope, but variants make us cope.

(Chorus)
We didn't start the fire, but it's burning brighter,
From crisis to crisis, in this world we're living,
Through the chaos and the pain, we'll rise again,
Together we'll ignite, a future shining bright.

(Verse 2)
Crypto rise, Bitcoin's high, blockchain changing the finance sky,
NFTs and digital art, a new era playing its part,
SpaceX launches to the stars, Mars colonization not too far,
Jeff Bezos, space tourism, a new frontier to consume.

(Chorus)
We didn't start the fire, but it's burning brighter,
From crisis to crisis, in this world we're living,
Through the chaos and the pain, we'll rise again,
Together we'll ignite, a future shining bright.

(Verse 3)
Black Lives Matter, racial fight, justice sought with all our might,
Protests for equality, breaking chains of history,
Women's rights, gender is fluid, voices rise, no longer muted,
LGBTQ+ love, acceptance, a world embracing difference.

(Chorus)
We didn't start the fire, but it's burning brighter,
From crisis to crisis, in this world we're living,
Through the chaos and the pain, we'll rise again,
Together we'll ignite, a future shining bright.

(Bridge)
Technological revolution, AI's grand evolution,
Automation, jobs at risk, reimagining our societal mix,
Renewable energy race, green solutions we embrace,
Education, innovation, building bridges for each nation.

(Verse 4)
Terror strikes, conflicts rise, seeking peace through compromise,
Refugees seeking a home, compassion shouldn't be overthrown,
Space exploration, mysteries unfold, seeking knowledge untold,
Scientific breakthroughs galore, unraveling the universe's core.

(Chorus)
We didn't start the fire, but it's burning brighter,
From crisis to crisis, in this world we're living,
Through the chaos and the pain, we'll rise again,
Together we'll ignite, a future shining bright.

(Outro)
In this ever-changing world, where challenges are hurled,
We'll face them hand in hand, united we will stand,
For the fire may keep on burning, but our spirit keeps on yearning,
To build a world that's just and free, a beacon of hope for you and me.

the flow is awful. this is such lazy songwriting. craft matters!

Deepfake, yellowcake, Bill Clinton's trousersnake

(Outro)
In this ever-changing world, where challenges are hurled,
We'll face them hand in hand, united we will stand,
For the fire may keep on burning, but our spirit keeps on yearning,
To build a world that's just and free, a beacon of hope for you and me.

someone has convinced chatgpt that every single song has to have an "outro" and, worse, it has to tie the song up in an inspirational bow, and it might be the single worst thing about the entire field of artificial intelligence.

Not enough Space Monkey Mafia randomness in those ai lyrics.

the flow is awful. this is such lazy songwriting. craft matters!

(this was about fob, not ai, in case that wasn't clear!)

I thought this, from a few years back, was a sort of clever take on the same idea (diff song, obv): https://godisinthetvzine.bandcamp.com/track/it-s-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine-2021-version

next up, a version of this that lists all of the influencers that got cancelled between 2018-2023

I don’t even recognize some of the shit in the Fall Out Boy version. Like why is some guy from Blink 182 name checked?

AI has done the impossible. It made me respect this song.

AI didn't start the fire, Eric H

AI CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE

Confirmed recently that I still know every single word to this song. You can take the girl outta Long Island etc etc.

this was shopped around to multiple bands, right?

Barenaked Ladies passed

The pitch email was redirected to Smash Mouth's spam folder.

Post Malone was approached but he hit the guy before he could finish talking

20. It’s also very funny that My Chemical Romance’s album The Black Parade is deemed worthy of inclusion on this list.

21. Not gonna lie, at least one person at Slate very nervously asked if “Black Parade” was a ham-handed reference to Black Lives Matter.

Cf. Amy Winehouse, back 2 black lives matter

Like why is some guy from Blink 182 name checked?

― Alito Bit of Soap (President Keyes), Thursday, June 29, 2023 6:33 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

because area 51

Area 51 is Billy Joel territory

Did Blink 182 play a show there?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/science/tom-delonge-ufo-research.html

Oh. How did I miss this significant event from the past 30 years

Dr Disrespect is banned, "jet fuel can't melt steal beams, mannn"
Rockapella, Miles Teller
Morrow has no head

No one warned Duke Ferdinand
Humankind just learned to stand
Jesus died, people cried
Guy from Matlock's dead

Mose makes the sea divide
Cleopatra suicide
A dinosaur took a bath
somebody invented math

Moses

Is there a version of this song with only "JFK blown away" as lyrics

Perhaps not, Neanderthal, but we will always have "suckin on chili dogs."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QX57aIDbDU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GP6jDp5oN8

Okay I see that and raise you with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K4oym9Pw48

Update? It's been done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTOBvGzurxA

Seems like they missed a shot by not using something like "DeSantis Hey, Don't Say 'Gay', What Else Do I Have To Say?"

(I'm sure I just ruined my YouTube recommendation algorithm by searching for that video.)

Hideous Lump, thank you for posting this important corrective

I am sure we will all reflect on its messaging and totally change our minds now

I take it back, the revised chorus is actually quite a feat

(Chorus)
We didn't start the fire, but it's burning brighter,
From crisis to crisis, in this world we're living,
Through the chaos and the pain, we'll rise again,
Together we'll ignite, a future shining bright.

Needs a Soviet Childrens' Choir

The video to The 1975’s Love It If We Made It was already a modern-day update of this song, kinda.