or it pretty much went out and we re-started it
― you bet, nancy (map), Monday, 11 June 2018 20:51 (five years ago) link
i wish this song were called "Moments in Time"
― you bet, nancy (map), Monday, 11 June 2018 20:52 (five years ago) link
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."
― pplains, Monday, 11 June 2018 20:57 (five years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g04jLd1b_mo
― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 11 June 2018 21:35 (five years ago) link
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.
― Not with a bang but a MAGA (Old Lunch), Monday, 11 June 2018 22:10 (five years ago) link
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
― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Saturday, 19 June 2021 01:25 (two years ago) link
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.
― search term: buttrock (morrisp), Saturday, 19 June 2021 02:27 (two years ago) link
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."
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 19 June 2021 02:27 (two years ago) link
Betty CrockerMinistryAt Toys 'R' Us, a shopping spreeNipsy RussellMr. WhippleTootsie Roll PopSpaceballsMadballsHot Sam's in every shopping mallDaisy FuentesCrazytownGino Vanelli wants to stop
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Saturday, 19 June 2021 03:41 (two years ago) link
Can anyone tell me what Prokofiev did to be included in this litany of touchstones?
― Hans Holbein (Chinchilla VolapĂĽk), Saturday, 19 June 2021 04:14 (two years ago) link
Wikipedia obliges:
Sergei Prokofiev, a popular Russian composer, dies.
― search term: buttrock (morrisp), Saturday, 19 June 2021 04:21 (two years ago) link
Now tell me what baseball didDid it start a fire
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:14 (two years ago) link
i think "california baseball" refers to some teams moving to california. pretty flimsy/minor imo.
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 19 June 2021 11:27 (two years ago) link
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!)
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 19 June 2021 12:55 (two years ago) link
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?
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 19 June 2021 12:56 (two years ago) link
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."
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:01 (two years ago) link
Also, young Drew Barrymore.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:05 (two years ago) link
Gavin Rossdale admitted his involvement in a Razorblade Suitcase deep cut.
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:07 (two years ago) link
this song would have been better if Billy Joel had just listed all of the people that had aggrieved him in his life
― cancel culture club (Neanderthal), Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:19 (two years ago) link
isn't that everyone who isn't billy joel
― Left, Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:25 (two years ago) link
Tuna saladHam on ryeWith a pickle on the sidePatty meltBLTCantaloupe and cottage cheeseMeatloafOpen-facedCorned beef, if you like the tasteYour choice of salad,Soup or friesAnd a beverage of any size
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:42 (two years ago) link
We're eating at a dinerOh, we've heard such good thingsFrom Estelle and Irving
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:43 (two years ago) link
Eat your heart out Weird Albert
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Saturday, 19 June 2021 13:44 (two years ago) link
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.
― search term: buttrock (morrisp), Saturday, 19 June 2021 15:29 (two years ago) link
You’re so right, though, that having it build to banal “cola wars” instead of “needles on the shore” makes it a pop song.
― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Saturday, 19 June 2021 17:15 (two years ago) link
"British politician sex" sounds like the most awkward, stilted, worst imaginable kind of sex.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 19 June 2021 19:24 (two years ago) link
JFK, blown away
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 19 June 2021 20:18 (two years ago) link
L'Oreal, hair's gone grey
― cancel culture club (Neanderthal), Saturday, 19 June 2021 20:24 (two years ago) link
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
― âś–, Saturday, 19 June 2021 20:32 (two years ago) link
arguably a bigger deal than the other 50 baseball references in the song
― âś–, Saturday, 19 June 2021 20:33 (two years ago) link
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.
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 19 June 2021 20:33 (two years ago) link
For the longest time I think I thought 'Hula Hoops' Castro was the name of some sports figure with whom I was unfamiliar.
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Saturday, 19 June 2021 20:53 (two years ago) link
hahahahahahahahaha that's wonderful
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 19 June 2021 23:51 (two years ago) link
I'd love to read a really good book about the Cola Wars. There must be one i'm sure..
― piscesx, Saturday, 19 June 2021 23:59 (two years ago) link
Always struck me as odd that Billy thought suicide was invented in the 80s.
― chap, Sunday, 20 June 2021 11:55 (two years ago) link
Unless he's talking about the band?
He's talking about the combination of fountain drinks.
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Sunday, 20 June 2021 12:01 (two years ago) link
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).
― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Sunday, 20 June 2021 12:28 (two years ago) link
all excellent
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Sunday, 20 June 2021 15:58 (two years ago) link
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.
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Sunday, 20 June 2021 15:59 (two years ago) link
yeah, the Ozzy Osbourne song "Suicide Solution" and the related case I think, or Judas Priest "Better by You, Better Than Me" trial
― cancel culture club (Neanderthal), Sunday, 20 June 2021 16:00 (two years ago) link
Yes - check out the song’s Wikipedia page… it details every reference.
― search term: buttrock (morrisp), Sunday, 20 June 2021 16:01 (two years ago) link
get the gunget the gunSHOOTSHOOTSHOOT
that lawyer was such a clown
― cancel culture club (Neanderthal), Sunday, 20 June 2021 16:01 (two years ago) link
This song is irredeemable shit, but it could be worse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_16Ws1vYoc0
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 20 June 2021 16:11 (two years ago) link
song is irredeemable shitcould be worse, couldn't it?compact discs, Chex MixPee Wee's Playhouse rocks
― cancel culture club (Neanderthal), Sunday, 20 June 2021 16:14 (two years ago) link
I have to stop searching for these, this fucking song is a transmissible disease
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-hy715XWeY
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 20 June 2021 16:15 (two years ago) link
Think I would recast my vote for "Birth control, Ho Chi Minh"
― pplains, Sunday, 20 June 2021 16:22 (two years ago) link
How exactly was this song received by non-American listeners? Wikipedia claims it charted in the UK.
― with hidden noise, Monday, 21 June 2021 01:59 (two years ago) link
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'.
― Portsmouth Bubblejet, Monday, 21 June 2021 06:37 (two years ago) link
Yeah, a big hit here. Enough "world" and "British" references to fly, the "US local" ones pass by at speed.
Xpost
― Mark G, Monday, 21 June 2021 06:40 (two years ago) link