We Didn’t Start The Fire
I’ve always wondered about this song where, Billy Joel essentially crammed a crash-course in 20th-century history into a pop song. We Didn’t Start the Fire is built as a timeline: a machine-gun list of names, events, scandals, and cultural shifts from 1949 (Joel’s birth year) through to the late 1980s. The refrain hammers home the idea that every generation inherits crises and upheavals: the fire was already burning, and will keep burning.
I’ve looked into every single aspect he’s covered and given a brief explanation of each.
Verse 1
* Harry Truman: US President at the dawn of the Cold War; shaped post-WWII order.
* Doris Day: Singer/actor symbolising sunny postwar American pop culture.
* Red China: Communist victory in 1949; Mao’s PRC resets global politics.
* Johnnie Ray: Hyper-emotive pop singer bridging crooner to rock era.
* South Pacific: 1949 Broadway hit tackling racism and wartime love.
* Walter Winchell: Fearsome gossip/news columnist; media power broker.
* Joe DiMaggio: Baseball legend and American icon of excellence.
Verse 2
* Joe McCarthy: Senator leading anti-Communist witch hunts.
* Richard Nixon: Rising anti-Red politician; future scandal-scarred president.
* Studebaker: Carmaker emblem; boom-and-bust of US industry.
* Television: New mass medium reshaping culture and politics.
* North Korea, South Korea: The Korean War splits the peninsula.
* Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood’s brightest and most mythic star.
Verse 3
* Rosenbergs: Couple executed for atomic spying; Cold War paranoia.
* H-bomb: Thermonuclear escalation in the arms race.
* Sugar Ray: Boxer Sugar Ray Robinson; peak sports celebrity.
* Panmunjom: Site of the Korean Armistice talks and truce.
* Brando: Method acting revolution; “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “On the Waterfront.”
* The King and I: Rodgers & Hammerstein smash; East-West fascination.
* The Catcher in the Rye: Controversial, era-defining novel of alienation.
* Eisenhower: WWII hero turned 1950s US president.
* Vaccine: Salk’s polio vaccine; public-health breakthrough.
* England’s got a new queen: Elizabeth II crowned in 1953.
* Marciano: Undefeated heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano.
* Liberace: Flashy pianist; early TV megastar.
* Santayana goodbye: Philosopher George Santayana dies in 1952, known for “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This one seems particularly relevant in today’s political climate
Verse 4
* Joseph Stalin: Soviet dictator’s death resets USSR power struggle.
* Malenkov: Brief post-Stalin Soviet leader; transition figure.
* Nasser: Egyptian strongman; pan-Arabism and Suez Crisis.
* Prokofiev: Major Russian composer; dies 1953.
* Rockefeller: American power family; politics and oil wealth.
* Campanella: Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella; tragic paralysis after car crash.
* Communist Bloc: Eastern Europe under Soviet sway.
Verse 5
* Roy Cohn: McCarthy’s counsel; later infamous NYC fixer.
* Juan Perón: Populist Argentine president; Peronism’s long shadow.
* Toscanini: Maestro of NBC Symphony; classical music colossus.
* Dacron: New synthetic fibre; consumer/tech optimism.
* Dien Bien Phu falls: French defeat in Vietnam; US era begins.
* “Rock Around the Clock”: Bill Haley hit; rock ’n’ roll ignition.
* Einstein: Physics icon dies 1955; symbol of modern science.
* James Dean: Rebel movie star; youth culture martyr.
* Brooklyn’s got a winning team: Dodgers’ 1955 World Series win.
* Davy Crockett: Disney TV craze; coonskin-cap mania.
* Peter Pan: Live TV musical phenomenon with Mary Martin.
* Elvis Presley: Rock revolution embodied.
* Disneyland: 1955 theme-park opening; mass entertainment model.
* Bardot: Brigitte Bardot; French bombshell and sexual liberation symbol.
* Budapest: 1956 Hungarian Uprising crushed by USSR.
* Alabama: Early Civil Rights flashpoints (e.g., Montgomery Bus Boycott).
* Khrushchev: Soviet leader; de-Stalinisation and brinkmanship.
* Princess Grace: Grace Kelly’s royal fairy-tale marriage to Rainier.
* Peyton Place: Scandalous bestseller/TV; small-town hypocrisy laid bare.
* Trouble in the Suez: 1956 Suez Crisis; imperial aftershocks.
Verse 6
* Little Rock: 1957 school desegregation crisis.
* Pasternak: Nobel-winning author forced to refuse prize for “Doctor Zhivago.”
* Mickey Mantle: Yankees superstar; sports idol.
* Kerouac: Beat pioneer; “On the Road” defines restlessness.
* Sputnik: First satellite; space race starts.
* Chou En-lai: Zhou Enlai; PRC statesman diplomat.
* Bridge on the River Kwai: Epic war film; cultural juggernaut.
* Lebanon: 1958 US intervention amid regional turmoil.
* Charles de Gaulle: Returns to power; births Fifth Republic.
* California baseball: Dodgers/Giants move west; US sports shift.
* Starkweather homicide: Teen killer spree; media panic.
* Children of Thalidomide: Drug disaster causing birth defects.
Verse 7
* Buddy Holly: Rock pioneer dies in 1959 plane crash.
* Ben-Hur: 1959 epic; Oscars record.
* Space monkey: US/USSR animal flights testing space risk.
* Mafia: Organised crime’s public notoriety rises.
* Hula hoops: Fad economics and pop culture silliness.
* Castro: Cuban Revolution succeeds 1959.
* Edsel is a no-go: Ford’s notorious market flop.
* U2: US spy plane (Gary Powers) downed over USSR.
* Syngman Rhee: Authoritarian South Korean leader ousted.
* Payola: DJs bribery scandal reshaping radio.
* Kennedy: JFK’s 1960 election aura.
* Chubby Checker: Twist dance craze mainstreams youth culture.
* Psycho: Hitchcock shocks cinema norms.
* Belgians in the Congo: Chaotic decolonisation and conflict.
Verse 8
* Hemingway: Nobel novelist’s 1961 suicide; American letters loss.
* Eichmann: Nazi captured/tried; televised reckoning with Holocaust.
* “Stranger in a Strange Land”: Heinlein novel; counterculture touchstone.
* Dylan: Bob Dylan’s folk-to-rock upheaval.
* Berlin: 1961 Wall symbolises Cold War division.
* Bay of Pigs invasion: Failed CIA-backed Cuba invasion.
* “Lawrence of Arabia”: 1962 epic; cinematic landmark.
* British Beatlemania: Beatles explode; global pop tidal wave.
* Ole Miss: Violent clash over James Meredith’s admission.
* John Glenn: First American to orbit Earth.
* Liston beats Patterson: Heavyweight title shake-up before Ali era.
* Pope Paul: Paul VI succeeds John XXIII; Vatican II continuation.
* Malcolm X: Black nationalist leader; later assassinated.
* JFK blown away: 1963 Dallas assassination shocks the world.
Verse 9
* Birth control: Pill legalisation expands reproductive freedom.
* Ho Chi Minh: North Vietnam’s leader; war escalates.
* Richard Nixon back again: Political comeback leading to 1968/’69.
* Moonshot: Apollo programme racing to the Moon.
* Woodstock: 1969 festival crystallising counterculture.
* Watergate: 1972–74 break-in and cover-up; Nixon resigns.
* Punk rock: Mid-70s cultural backlash; DIY aggression.
* Begin: Menachem Begin; Camp David Accords with Sadat.
* Reagan: Conservative resurgence; 1980 election.
* Palestine: Ongoing conflict and PLO prominence.
* Terror on the airline: 70s/80s hijackings/attacks highlight global terror.
* Ayatollah’s in Iran: 1979 Islamic Revolution; US hostage crisis.
* Russians in Afghanistan: 1979 Soviet invasion; long proxy war.
Verse 10
* Wheel of Fortune: TV game show zeitgeist of mass media escapism.
* Sally Ride: First American woman in space, 1983.
* Heavy metal suicide: Moral panic over music and teen suicides.
* Foreign debts: Global debt crises rocking developing nations.
* Homeless vets: Post-Vietnam neglect and social failure.
* AIDS: New deadly epidemic and social stigma.
* Crack: 1980s drug wave with urban devastation.
* Bernie Goetz: 1984 NYC subway shooter; crime and vigilante debates.
* Hypodermics on the shore: Syringe wash-ups; pollution panic.
* China’s under martial law: 1989 Tiananmen crackdown context.
* Rock and roller, cola wars: Pop-culture commercialisation; trivial feuds amidst real crises.
