We Didn't Start The Fire (billy Joel)

Phoenix

Active Member
Messages
631
We Didn't Start The Fire (billy Joel)

Bill Joel composed a song "We didn't start the fire" 1989.
According to this website.
http://www.rareexception.com/Garden/Eighties/Fire.php
We Didn't Start The Fire
Billy Joel

Copyright 1996, Leilani Gnall
Edited and Published 1997, Paul O'Brien







Billy Joel (reportedly) wrote this song because he overheard a child say that he felt sorry for \"older people\" like Billy Joel because no \"history\" happened in their lifetime, that NOW (or the time the song was written) was going to be the world's most historical time period. The comment got to Billy Joel so much that he sat down and wrote this to prove that his lifetime has been FULL of history.
...
The World's always been kinda messed up, it was messed up before I was born, it was messed up during the time that I lived and it will probably be messed up after I'm gone.? That doesn't mean you don't try the best that you can and make this a better world.


http://uploader.wuerzburg.de/gym-fkg/schul...l/songtext.html







1949
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,?
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe Dimaggio,
1950
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television,?
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe,
1951
Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom,?
Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye
1952
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new Queen,?
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana good-bye .

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire?
It was always burning,?
Since the world's been turning.?
We didn't start the fire?
Well we didn't light it,?
But we tried to fight it.
1953
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist bloc,
1954
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Tosconini, Dacron,?
Dien Bien Phu falls, Rock Around the Clock,
1955
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,?
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
1956
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev,?
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez.

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire?
It was always burning,?
Since the world's been turning.?
We didn't start the fire?
Well we didn't light it,?
But we tried to fight it.
1957
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,?
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge on the River Kwai,
1958
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,?
Starkweather homicide, Children of Thalidomide,
1959
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia,?
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no go,
1960
U-2, Syngman Rhee, Payola, and Kennedy,?
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo.

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire?
It was always burning,?
Since the world's been turning.?
We didn't start the fire?
Well we didn't light it,?
But we tried to fight it.
1961
Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land,?
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion,
1962
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania,?
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
1963
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,?
JFK blown away, What else do I have to say?

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire?
It was always burning,?
Since the world's been turning.?
We didn't start the fire?
Well we didn't light it,?
But we tried to fight it.
1964
to
1989
Birth control, Ho Chi-Minh, Richard Nixon back again,?
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate,Punk Rock,?
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, t**r on the airlines
Ayatollahs in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,?
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, Heavy metal, Suicide,?
Foreign debts, Homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz,?
Hypodermics on the shore, China's Under Martial law,?
Rock and Roller Cola Wars, I can't take it any more!

We didn't start the fire?
It was always burning,?
Since the world's been turning.?
We didn't start the fire?
But when we are gone?
It will still burn on and on and on and on.....?
CHORUS


The thing with the song is that it is primary focused from 1949 to 1963. I propose that as a community, that includes potential time travelers, that we continue the song in the same manner it was written. For one we have a decade and a half between 1989 when the song was written and 2004 present day. Then we could also fill in the past if our preferences are of that persuasion. And we could fill in the future. With either sci-fi, tech related, or religious predictions, or if you are a time traveler with what you recall from your history.

Hopefully we can make it seem to fit seemlessly with the songs original structure.
 

Phoenix

Active Member
Messages
631
We Didn't Start The Fire (billy Joel)

Finally done.
wikipedia is a great resource
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

So is this page
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/index.html#YearIndex

And this one
http://windows.about.com/library/history/b...history2000.htm

And here
http://history1900s.about.com/library/time.../bltime1990.htm


1990 Windows 3.0, Hubble telescope, Nelson Mandela freed,
Tyson Douglas fight.
1991 Operation Desert Storm, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Magic Johnson, Garth Brooks, former Soviet Union.
1992 LA riots, Dr. Dre, World Wide Web, Workgroups 3.1, Aladdin, Malcom X
1993 Clinton elected, Waco Texas, Internet, Presley stamp, Jurassic Park

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.

1994 OJ Simpson murder trial, Lorena Bobbit, Rwandan Genocide, Forrest Gump, Kurt Cobain, Woodstock'94
1995 Oklahoma city bombing, Tibetan Freedom Concert, Ebola Virus, Toy Story, Windows 95
1996 Mad Cow Disease Hits Britain, Unabomber Arrested, Pamela Anderson video, Indepence Day
1997 Hale-Bopp, Princess Dia, Tiger Woods, Pathfinder, Dolly the sheep, Titanic, Pokemon, Paul McCartney nighted.

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.

1998 India and Pakistan, Monica Lewinski, Viagra, Windows 98, DVD, Candle In The Wind, Sir Elton John
1999 Euro, Y2K, Columbine, Serbia, Panama, Phantom Menace, Direct X 6.1
2000 Florida Elections, How the Grinch Stole Christmass, Y2K a no show, Windows 2000, President Vincent Fox
2001 9/11, Harry Potter, Osama bin Laden, Taliban, Afghanistan, Lord of The Rings, XBox, Windows XP

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it

2002 Spider Man, War Craft III, Pink, eminem, ferrari, American Idol, Las Ketchup
2003 Iraq, Kobe brian, jessica lynch, dixie chicks, Maxtrix Reloaded, Sars, North Korea makes threats
2004 Passion of Christ, Jannet Jackson, Same S-ex Marriage, I can't make up any more...
 

HackimerRob

Member
Messages
391
We Didn't Start The Fire (billy Joel)

Phoenix, this is interesting, but I must say your rhyming and tempo skills aren't really on par with Billy Joel, and I guess if they were you wouldn't be adminning this site, now, would you?
:)
 

HackimerRob

Member
Messages
391
We Didn't Start The Fire (billy Joel)

I might rabbit, I might. I find it interesting at least that Malcolm X shows up in both versions!
 

lev

Junior Member
Messages
144
We Didn't Start The Fire (billy Joel)

::.. Sure we started the fires ..::
::.. Aren't well all Idiot Savant Pyromaniacs ..::
::.. Also, If no one is around to see the fires.. ..::.. I'll shut up now ..::
 

Phoenix

Active Member
Messages
631
We Didn't Start The Fire (billy Joel)

Originally posted by lev@Jul 23 2004, 08:54 AM
::.. Sure we started the fires ..::
::.. Aren't well all Idiot Savant Pyromaniacs ..::
::.. Also, If no one is around to see the fires.. ..::.. I'll shut up now ..::
hehehe
 

Judge Bean

Senior Member
Messages
1,257
Re: We Didn't Start The Fire (billy Joel)

It is interesting that this thread continues to attract some attention after so long. I suppose it is because it might come up as a hit when googling Billy Joel. If that is the case, I suppose that some people find themselves deep into time travel territory when they were simply looking for the exact lyrics to a stupid, stupid song.

But it is one in a long line of such stupid songs, pop tunes meant to be very deep, but actually bathetic.

Look it up.

For the record, we did start the fire, and not only that, we keep it pretty well stoked. It may be the case that some pampered celebrities, ensconced in their gilded, blingy towers, feel no responsibility for the condition of the world, but this does little more than explain the vacuity and banality of modern art.
 

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