We Didn't Start The Fire - Music

Frogtoon Music - Song Info: We Didn't Start the Fire

Billy-Joel - Storm Front

"We Didn't Start The Fire" Is A Song By Billy Joel. Its Lyrics Include Brief Rapid-Fire Allusions To More Than 100 Headline Events Between January 1949 Joel Was Born On May 9 Of That Year And 1989 When The Song Was Released On His Album Storm Front. The Song Was A No. 1 Hit In The US. It Peaked At #1 On The U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart In The Autumn Of 1989. Joel Got The Idea For The Song When He Had Just Turned 40. He Was In A Recording Studio And Met A Friend Of Sean Lennon Who Had Just Turned 21 Who Said "It's A Terrible Time To Be 21!" Joel Replied To Him "Yeah I Remember When I Was 21 -- I Thought It Was An Awful Time And We Had Vietnam And Y'know Drug Problems And Civil Rights Problems And Everything Seemed To Be Awful." The Friend Replied "Yeah Yeah Yeah But It's Different For You. You Were A Kid In The Fifties And Everybody Knows That Nothing Happened In The Fifties". Joel Retorted "Wait A Minute Didn't You Hear Of The Korean War Or The Suez Canal Crisis?" Joel Later Said Those Headlines Formed The Basic Framework For The Song. Joel Has Said "I'm A History Nut. I Devour Books. At One Time I Wanted To Be A History Teacher". According To His Mother He Was A Bookworm By The Age Of Seven. Unlike Most Of Joel's Songs The Lyrics Were Written Before The Melody Owing To The Somewhat Unusual Style Of The Song. The Song Was A Huge Commercial Success And Was Joel's Third Billboard No. 1 Hit. It Was Nominated For The Grammy Award For Record Of The Year. I Had Turned Forty. It Was 1989 And I Said "Okay What's Happened In My Life?" I Wrote Down The Year 1949. Okay Harry Truman Was President. Popular Singer Of The Day Doris Day. China Went Communist. Another Popular Singer Johnnie Ray. Big Broadway Show South Pacific. Journalist Walter Winchell. Athlete Joe DiMaggio. Then I Went On To 1950 ... . It's One Of The Worst Melodies I've Ever Written. I Kind Of Like The Lyric Though. Joel Has Said "There's An Element Of Malevolence In The Song" It's Like Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop. Joel Has Mixed Feelings About The Song. "It's A Nightmare To Perform Live Because If I Miss One Word It's A Train Wreck." He Has Also Called It A "novelty Song" That Does Not "really Define Me As Well As Album Songs That Probably Don't Get Played". On Being Asked If He Could Do A Follow-Up About The Next Couple Of Years After The Events That Transpired In The Original Song He Commented "No I Wrote One Song Already And I Don't Think It Was Really That Good To Begin With Melodically." Blender Magazine Ranked "We Didn't Start The Fire" No. 41 On Its List Of The "50 Worst Songs Ever" A List That Also Includes Songs From Paul McCartney And Simon & Garfunkel. They Considered The Production Bombastic And Stated That The Song "resembles A Term Paper Scribbled The Night Before It’s Due."