In fact, Joel’s own account of the song’s origins suggests he can indeed get as bristly about his generation as he does his music. adunit_id: 100001411, It’s easy to identify the enormous errors historians fed their students in the past. This monster hit of a song was created in 1989, when Joel turned 40. It was 1989, and I said, 'Okay, what's happened in my life?' Having just turned 40, he was irritated by a younger person’s remarks. The idea spawned from a conversation he had with a friend of Sean Lennon. The Harvard professor stated, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." We may never know for sure. Inspired by a clown he met while touring Russia, this song compares their Cold War lives, recalls the cataclysmic relief when the Cuban Missile crisis ended—“when the Soviets turned their ships around”—and laments the sad fact that this did not bring lasting peace—“And I watched my friends go off to war, what do they keep on fighting for.”, But for some reason, Joel didn’t offer this sort of commentary in “We Didn’t Start the fire.” In fact, rather than comment, he passed the buck. I also heard that it was most of the events that werent in Americas control ( that second part i only heard so correct this if im wrong). Still awesome annotations though. Hidden between the lines, words and thoughts sometimes hold many different, Remember: your meaning might be valuable for someone, Don't post links to images and links to facts, Don't spam and write clearly off-topic meanings, Don't write abusive, vulgar, offensive, racist, threatening or harassing meanings, Do not post anything that you do not have the right to post. ", A monthly update on our latest interviews, stories and added songs, The lyrics are a stream-of-consciousness list of events that Joel felt his generation was not responsible for. Highlight lyrics and request an explanation. "Womanizer" was Britney Spears' comeback song, going to #1 about 10 months after she was institutionalized to get treatment for addictions and mental health issues. The "fire" is all the persecution that goes on in the world and hes saying that they didn't start the fire and that they are trying to fight it. Most of the problems that make up Joel’s laundry list were legacies of earlier events. Billy Joel may not be the best historian, but he gets this. To the rest of us, this might seem an innocuous comment, but Joel read it as a rip on people his age, and “We Didn’t Start the Fire” was his response. appealing. 1 Reply Log in to reply 0. This is an exceptional example of what RG can do when done right. Does it mean anything special hidden It was 1989, and I said, “Okay, what’s happened in my life? To me he is alluding to the fact that evil has always existed. “What I’m trying to get across is that we didn’t start this stuff, we inherited it” (Rolling Stone, 16 November 1989). It’s easy to identify the big mistakes, deliberate falsehoods, and story-changing omissions made by historians in the past. Joel means that throughout time, there have... Before you get started, be sure to check out these explanations created Whenever we try to piece together any story that we haven’t lived, there’s room for error (Billy Joel did live through that stuff, and he still missed some major events). One of the most popular classical vocalists in the land is lining up a trip to space, which is the inspiration for many of her songs. Obviously, Joel couldn’t mention everything. Lyrics taken from Rather than really exploring his past, Joel simply read off “a shopping list of celebrities, events, and popular culture icons without the benefit of context or conclusion” (Rolling Stone, 14 December 1989). Even though his chorus emphasizes history’s “fire,” not all the names and events making his list are hellish. It’s like a mosquito droning. “Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland”—how empty would life be without coonskin caps and the Thunder Mountain Railroad? Joel means that throughout time, there have always been problems in the world. He’s got Sugar Ray, Marciano, Liston, and Patterson—but how could he leave off Clay/Ali? The next lines of the chorus discuss the fact that each generation attempts to fix the issues of the last ("We didn't light it, but we tried to fight it"). The friend just turned 21 and was complaining about how crazy it was to be living in his era, therefore undermining any other time before his. by our users: Please, do not delete tags "[e=***][/e]", because they responsible for While Joel’s comment doesn’t exactly ooze responsibility, it’s a valid point. He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair. It’s super easy, we promise! I had turned forty. One, the culprit remains a mystery and two, widely regarded as the event which Hitler exploited to gain more and more support to eventually become elected. Not long after "We Didn't Start The Fire" was released, the fifth grade class at the Banta Elementary School in Menasha, Wisconsin used the lyrics of the song to select topics for their history reports. Each verse is about something that affected the world in a good or bad way and no matter how hard you try, you can't stop things from happening. Today, a simple Google search would flesh out a verse for 2010: Oil spill in the gulf, health care, Time Square scareBlagojevich, Big Ben, Conan’s gone then back againWikileaks, iPads, Lindsay’s back in rehabBristol’s dancing with the stars, Tiger’s bustin’ up his car, Beyond placing his headlines in chronological order, Joel did squat to provide context or commentary. Naturally, that was GOD who started it all, since the world began. I think "we didn't start the fire" relates to the arson attack on the bundestag before ww2.
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