We Didn't Start the Fire
We Didn't Start the Fire is a song by Billy Joel that lists major events in his lifetime, from 1949 to 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front. The song was written in response to a comment from Joel's son that the older generation saw no history in the making during its lifetime.
(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 goodbye
(1953)
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
(1954)
Roy Cohn, Juan Perón, Toscanini, 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
(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 hoop, Castro, Edsel is a no go
(1960)
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
(1961)
Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion
(1962)
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
(1963)
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK blown away
(1964-1989)
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
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 WarsSummarised Lyrics
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist bloc
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollahs in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
