Have you ever wondered what it would be like if someone were to update/finish Billy Joel’s iconic 1980’s hit We Didn’t Start the Fire? The song was one of my favorites when I was a kid. In fact, as ashamed as I am to admit this, Stormfront was probably one of my first cd’s. So, over the last few days, I’ve gone through and tried to finish the song.
We Didn’t Start the Fire is basically a stream of consciousness list of historical events from 1949 to 1989. For the first fifteen years, 1949 to 1963, the song lists six persons or events that made history during that year. From 1964 to 1989, Joel’s version loses form and, except for 1983, the lyrics become an amalgamation of two and a half decades of history.
I kept Joel’s version in tact through 1963. After that I basically rewrote the whole thing. I did this for two reasons. First, it was difficult to use the original lyrics in conjunction with my own. Second, to be quite honest, I’ve always thought that the third verse was pretty weak.
So, anyway, here’s my attempt at finishing the song. It covers 58 years and approximately 350 people or events. I’ve left out the refrain. You’ll have to add that in yourself at the appropriate intervals.
1949: Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny 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,
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,
1954: Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, 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 Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,
1960: U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo,
1961: Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,
1962: Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
1963: Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex,
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say,
1964: Mary Poppins, Gulf of Tonkin, War on Poverty,
Mustang, Free Speech, Great Train Robbery,
1965: Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Maple Leaf, Vatican,
Watts Riot, SDS began,
1966: Blackbird, Black Panther, Peace at Tashkent,
NATO, Star Trek, The right to remain silent,
1967: Super Bowl, British steel, and a summer full of love,
North Sea, Muhammad Ali, and a symbolic black glove,
1968: Prague Spring, Chicago Seven, The Tet Offensive,
Assassinations, Massacres, One Life to Live,
1969: Moonshot, Woodstock, silent majority,
Wal-Mart, Arafat, draft lottery,
1970: Earth Day, EPA, eighteen to vote,
Kent State, postal strike, Heyerdahl and his boat,
1971: OPEC, Amtrak, school busings ok,
Pentagon Papers, Bretton Woods, e-mail by Ray,
1972: Godfather, ERA, Ballistic Missile Treaty,
Bobby Fischer, Price is Right, Roberto Clemente,
1973: Roe v. Wade, Paris Peace, Triple Crown,
Sears Tower, War Powers, Dollars going down,
1974: Stephen King, Solzhenitsyn, Watergate burglary bungle,
Smiling Buddha, Willy Brandt, Rumble in the Jungle,
1975: Pine Ridge, Prefontaine, Pele’s New York bound,
UK EC, Saigon VC, The Weather Underground,
1976: Concorde, Kampuchea, death penalty’s ok,
Son of Sam, Face on Mars, its the United States’ birthday,
1977: small pox, Tenerife, Gang of Four,
Centenary Test, Star Wars, Led Zeppelin is no more,
1978: Neutron bomb, Cleveland bonds, Camp David Accord,
Allan Bakke, Ted Bundy, Chinese reform,
1979: Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline,
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
1980: Superfund, Sakharov, Polish Solidarity,
ABSCAM, Miracle on Ice, Thatcher’s the Iron Lady,
1981: Royal Wedding, test tube baby, air controllers on strike,
Reagan shot, Anwar Sadat, Columbia’s first flight,
1982: Mexico, embargo, missing paper boy,
cyanide risk, compact disc, Falkland convoy,
1983: Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz,
1984: Baby Bell, Macintosh, Michael Jackson burned,
Sarajevo, coal miners strike, the Olympics get spurned,
1985: Achille Lauro, Buckyball, Super Mario,
Coke Classic, Titanic, We are the World,
1986: Chernobyl, Superbowl shuffle, Challenger explodes,
Khian Sea, Halley, Lady Liberty,
1987: Channel Tunnel, intifada, baby in a well,
Tammy Faye, Black Monday, I feel swell,
1988: Hulk Hogan, Perestroika, Iran-Contra Affair,
Night game, RUssian shame, Barbarians at the Gate,
1989: CFC, Sky TV, Satanic Verses,
Stockton’s pall, Berlin Wall, chinese corpses,
1990: Marion Barry, Nelson Mandela, Germany’s reunified,
Hubble’s launched, Thatcher’s gone, Iraq invades Kuwait,
1991: Magic Johnson, Desert Storm, Rodney King gets beat,
world wide web, Dr Seuss, Lithuanians in the street,
1992: Bill Clinton, Bulls repeat, Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
Ross Perot, L.A. Riot, EuroDisney folly,
1993: Gen X, Hubble’s flawed, Mandela and de Klerk,
EU, NAFTA, Waco Texas burns,
1994: white Ford Bronco, baseball strike, assault weapons ban,
Aldrich Ames, Genocide, Nancy Kerrigan,
1995: glove don’t fit, Newt Gingrich, Windows 95,
Jordan’s back, homegrown attack, free trade’s alive,
1996: Sheep cloned, Kasparov pwned, Royal divorce,
Tupac shot, Unabomber caught, Jobs on a white horse,
1997: Harry Potter, Princess Di, Deng Xiaoping,
Mother Teresa, Tiger Woods, Favre gets a ring,
1998: AOL, Drudge Report, California Smoking Ban,
blue dress, finanical mess, Google search began,
1999: Gretzky, monopoly, Man U’s got game,
Y2K, Dow 10K, Jar Jar Binks is lame,
2000: Napster, NASDAQ, Windows ME,
Elian, Bush v. Gore, Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?,
2001: ipod, Enron, 9/11 attack,
Earnhardt, bin Laden, Patriot Act,
2002: Beltway Sniper, Bali bomber, election in Brazil,
devaluation, deflation, Afganistan invasion,
2003: shock and awe, shuttle flaw, SARS scare,
Tony Blair, Jonny Depp, Genome map,
2004: Gay Marriage, Gitmo, George W. Bush,
Constitution, Revolution, warming of the earth,
2005: Kyoto, Schiavo, rioting in France,
Hurricane, Deep Throat’s name, give democracy a chance,
2006: YouTube, Sago Mine, Cheney hunts his friend,
bird flu, immigrants, 3,000 soldiers dead,
2007: Dreamliner, Don Imus, Kasparov in jail,
Michael Vick, Barry Bonds, OJ Simpson’s back again,
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