Billy Joel, ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’
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.
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.
Josef Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and 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, Khrushchev,
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez.
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.
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge On The River Kwai.
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California Baseball,
Starkweather homicide, Children of Thalidomide.
Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia,
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go.
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo.
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.
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,
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say?
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.
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!
We didn’t start the fire.
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning.
We didn’t start the fire.
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on…
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.
We didn’t start the fire.
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning.
We didn’t start the fire…
