Off topic: Lyrics to We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel)

[sybarite43]

This could be a useful current events examination. How much were you paying attention over the past fifty years? I missed one.

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 it1

Joseph 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, Krushchev
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, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"

Lebanon, Charlse 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
JFK, 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
Will it still burn 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
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Songwriters


Read more: Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire Lyrics | MetroLyrics

 

[Plainosooner]

I wonder how many of those under 30 would understand the cultural significance of half of those listed.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

I didn't realize he'd mentioned Starkweather

I wonder how many of those under 30 would understand the cultural significance of half of those listed.

I doubt it.
Someone surveyed 100 college freshmen last year. One of the questions was how many Supreme court justices are there?

Only 8 got it right with 9.

 

[sybarite43]

I didn't realize he'd mentioned Starkweather


I doubt it.
Someone surveyed 100 college freshmen last year. One of the questions was how many Supreme court justices are there?

Only 8 got it right with 9.

Starkweather was the only thing I couldn't remember. I just remembered that it was the name of someone. Couldn't remember what they did.

 

[Senior Sooner]

Starkweather was the only thing I couldn't remember. I just remembered that it was the name of someone. Couldn't remember what they did.

One of the early 'Bullied Boys'...Justification for his horrid deeds...

Remember Carol Ann Fugate, his Gal Pal?

 

[Plainosooner]

I didn't realize he'd mentioned Starkweather


I doubt it.
Someone surveyed 100 college freshmen last year. One of the questions was how many Supreme court justices are there?

Only 8 got it right with 9.

Maybe if they'd gone to a school besides OSU to take the survey, they'd have gotten 15 correct answers.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

Starkweather was the only thing I couldn't remember. I just remembered that it was the name of someone. Couldn't remember what they did.

Yep, when I was eight, that nut job Charles Starkweather and his underage girl friend went on a killing spree in Nebraska.

He killed 8 or 9 people as I recall, two of them his GF parents and one her sibling.
He was a mad dog animal.

Big time crime for 1958.

 

[Senior Sooner]

Yep, when I was eight, that nut job Charles Starkweather and his underage girl friend went on a killing spree in Nebraska.
He killed 8 or 9 people as I recall, two of them his GF parents and one her sibling.
He was a mad dog animal.
Big time crime for 1958.

11 Victims...

 

[Senior Sooner]

Who remembers Kathy Fiscus?

 

[Plainosooner]

That was two years before I was born. But I do remember Jessica McClure.

 

[Senior Sooner]

That was two years before I was born. But I do remember Jessica McClure.

Similar incident, but with Much Better Outcome...

 

[iasooner1]

Old Billy forgot to include Jimma the peanut for a good chunk of the current Mid-Eastern crap.

A good point for all to remember: dems in all their delusions of Utopia from Woody Wilson to the present mostly are responsible for starting wars while (with the exception of Truman) leaving it to repubs to finish them. Yeah 'Barry got Osama' in spite of himself (thanks to GW's intelligence collection), and is once again leaving a huge shiite storm for someone to clean up.