We Didn't Start the Fire

[Guaranteed]

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser aand Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

CHORUS

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"

Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

CHORUS

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?

CHORUS

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

CHORUS

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...?
-------------------------------------------------

Some things just never change (except for during the Clinton years, the best, most boring years I've ever known :) ).

Check out this link...it's kinder cool. It's nostalgic, kinder puts things in perspective: http://uploader.wuerzburg.de/gym-fkg/schule/fachber/englisch/joel/songtext.html

[markses]

1. Worst song ever

Truly.

[Fenris]

2. Billy Joel will burn in Hell.

:D

[JVS]

4. If it weren't for that damned Hitler, Billy Joel would be...

a department store owner in Berlin and we wouldn't have to endure his shitty music. Billy Joel's music is one of the many crimes of the 3rd Reich.

[Commendatori]

22. I couldn't agree more. This song has absolutely no redeeming

quality at all.

I've heard songs I hate as much as this one, but never one I hate more.

[Guaranteed]

23. Wow...so "MacArthur Park" has at least as much redeeming value

as this song?

What about the rest of Billy Joel's songs? He never made a song WORSE than this?

On edit: I think "Don't Fear the Reaper" needed MORE cowbell.

[Guaranteed]

24. Just a reminder...

....MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down...
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!

[Commendatori]

27. I don't think he did

make a song worse than this. At least I can't remember one.

He made a lot of garbage, to include "Uptown Girl," but nothing exceeds "We Didn't Start the Fire" in overall God-awfulness IMHO.

As for BOC, I don't like them for "Don't Fear the Reaper" or "Burning for You;" both songs are garbage. I like them for "Cities on Flame," "Golden Age of Leather," "Subhuman," "Harvester of Eyes," etc.

[Westegg]

35. Buck Dharma rules! (n/t)

[Lisa0825]

3. I like the song.... i have been wishing someone would make a new version..

There's plenty of material between the VRWC and the Bush dictator wannabe.

[markses]

5. I'm just gonna go ahead and assume you're not serious

It's better that way.

[Lisa0825]

6. music snobs are annoying.

I won't smack you around for what you like, so grant me the same, mkay?

[Guaranteed]

7. Besides, it's a damned good song.

It's history, baby.

[markses]

17. Oh right...I forgot

Anyone who gives a shit about quality is a snob. Right. DU Rule. My bad.

[Lisa0825]

25. no, you can hate the music if you want, but don't insult me for liking it.

[markses]

30. And I insulted you where, exactly?

:shrug:

[Westegg]

36. You can be a snob. Just be right...

...and you, my friend, are right indeed! How do I know? Because I agree with you. And while I may not always be right, I am, at least, never wrong.

[No2W2004]

8. They'll never stop the Simpsons

Ullman shorts, Christmas show,
Marge's fling, Homer's bro,
Bart in well, Flanders fails,
Whacking snakes, Monorail.
Mr. Plow, Homer space,
Sideshow Bob steps on rakes,
Lisa's future, Selma's hubby,
Marge not proud, Homer chubby.

Homer worries Bart is gay,
Poochie, U2, NRA,
Hippies, Vegas and Japan,
Octuplets, and Bart's boy band.
Marge murmurs, Maude croaks,
Lisa's Buddhist, Homer tokes,
Maggie blows Burns away,
What else do I have to say!

They'll never stop The Simpsons,
Have no fears, we've got stories for years, like:
Marge becomes a robot,
Maybe Moe gets a cell phone,
Has Bart ever owned a bear?
Or how about a crazy wedding?
Where something happens, a-do-do-do-do-do.

Sorry for the clip show.
Have no fears, we've got story for years!

[Guaranteed]

10. LOL

Yup, the truth's usually too weird to be able to just think up.

[peekaloo]

15. Sweet! I saw that episode tonight!!!!

LOL!

I'm kinda like Jesus but not in a sacrilegious way.......


p.s. didn't Weird Al do a song called "It's Still Billy Joel To Me"?

[Westegg]

39. Did you WRITE this? If so, yer a genius. If not...

You sure can TYPE!

LMAO

[NightTrain]

9. Nothing personal, but I fucking loathe Billy Joel.

And goddammit, a list is NOT a song!!!

[Guaranteed]

11. He made it rhyme, though.

:)

[NightTrain]

13. "Khruschev" and "Trouble in the Suez?"

:puke:

[Guaranteed]

16. Actually, he tries to rhyme Budapest with Khruschev...

Which works better, although still not perfect.

In any case, it's a great song.

[Burma Jones]

20. I show my wife how much I love her by

Giving her Billy Joel CDs as gifts. She likes him, I can't stand him. To think he's so associated with NY, bleech, he makes me wanna puke.

[Taverner]

12. Sorry, can't stand Billy Joel

but thats just me...

[Guaranteed]

14. Wow...so people like to dis Billy Joel...

That's a surprise.

Just read the damned lyrics, look at the history. Geez.

[markses]

18. So the lyrics and the history are supposed to make it good?

Or creative, or sumpin'? I know the history, and, unfortunately, I also know the lyrics to this utterly, obnoxiously terrible song. Not helping. I thought the lyrics are part of what produced tht noxious odor. As with the vast majority of Billy Joel's corpus, it is a brown stain on the history of American music. Yugh.

[Guaranteed]

19. Yeah. Along with his point that things

have always been crazy in the world, so don't let anything freak you out. It's a pretty good thing to keep in mind. His song and the history he revisits is there to remind you of that.

JFK: Blown away. What else do I have to say?

[King Of Paperboys]

21. Five bucks says

Every one of the people who states "Billy Joel sucks" has a band, and has had no measureable success whatsoever.

[Lisa0825]

26. and they think only indie music is any good...

anything mainstream automatically sucks... especially if they WERE indie and then sold out!!!

[markses]

32. Not me

Are you adding to the total I'm collecting now?

[tigerbeat]

40. i'll give billy joel plenty of credit....

...some of his earlier stuff ripped off elton john, but in a good way. (hey, i love ben folds even though he couldn't exist without cribbing joe jackson, who in turn couldn't have existed without cribbing off of elvis costello....) and there is plenty of stuff off of "glass houses" and "nylon curtain" that i'll listen to if'n it's on the radio.

but seriously, this song is a list of words whose unifying theme is "wow isn't history/politics/pop culture/life just craaaaaaaazy!" my pathetic 9th grade attempts at poetry and lyric writing were about as effective. and not even a decent hook in the whole thing to make up for the banal lyrics.

gimme "scenes from an italian restaurant" or "laura" over this.

[AngryAmish]

28. Never had a band and never will

But Billy Joel sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks.

Gimmie five bucks.

[Guaranteed]

29. Awww, see, you're just jealous. nt

[markses]

33. If you have a band, yer jealous/ If you don't have a band, yer jealous

It couldn't possibly be that Billy Joel's music is fucking terrible, and a blight even on its own demented suburban landscape? Naw. It's you, dawg. Jealous. :eyes:

[Guaranteed]

34. No, actually he's jealous cuz he's never

had Christie Brinkley.

[markses]

31. No band

And yet, Billy Joel still sucks. I'll bill you later.

[Westegg]

37. Bottle of red, bottle of white...

...Think I'll stay home and write a song tonite.

Got my almanacs and I got my smokes/
If I don't try drivin' , it'll save some folks.

Write down some names, and stay up late/
I'll make a million as I masturbate...

[Guaranteed]

38. 40,000 dead everyday!!

Don't be afraid!

[ProfessorGAC]

41. Song's OK By Me

I don't like Billy Joel, and i think his piano playing is abominably pedestrian, but i actually like that song. Especially compared to the most of the rest of his collection.
The Professor

[patcox2]

42. Thats from his "Rip off REM period"

When he ripped off the REM song "Its the End of the World and I Know It(and I feel fine)."

Of course, there was also his rip off Elton John period, (most of the early stuff, except the songs that ripped off Harry Chapin (come to think of it, his whole hammy style seems to have been lifted from the overly dramatic cahpin). Then there was his rip off Jackson Brown period (Rosie vs. Capt. Jack), followed by his rip off Bob Seger period (all of Glass Houses, I like that Old Time Rock n Roll vs. Its Still Rock n Roll to Me), followed by his rip off Bruce Springsteen period (Born in the USA vs. Allentown).

Noone, nowhere, ever in history, has ever been so unoriginal and crappy as Billy Joel. Noone has produced such a string of obvious copycat hits, the same themes, the same lyrics, always just a few months after someone else did the same song better.

And I am not a musician, and I am not a music snob, I happen to prefer all the orginal versions of Billy Joel's copied songs, and they are as mainstream as can be.

And to think George Harrison was sued for plagiarism, while Billy Joel remains at large, staggering around, crashing into trees and houses weekly. There is no justice.