We Didn't Start The Fire

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