Billy Joel: We Didn't Start the Fire Meaning

Song Released: 1989

We Didn't Start the Fire Lyrics

[References link to Wikipedia—Oh yeah! -ed]

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

CHORUS
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

CHORUS

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

CHORUS

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!

CHORUS

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!

CHORUS

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

1. anonymous

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   Sep 20th 2008 !⃝

   Um, well actually, it's not really about a time line of his life, a lot of it realities events that had some sort of impact on the cold war, not all or it of coarse, but if you listen to everything started, it can be traced back to the cold war. (considering all of it takes place in that time period)
2. anonymous

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   Sep 7th 2008 !⃝

   I think that in the refrain, when he says "we didn't start the fire" he's referring to his generation. The fire started before then...and will continue. And every generation tries to fight it...not always the same fire but new ones within time. Idk..just a guess
3. anonymous

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   May 19th 2008 !⃝

   The above person is correct. It is about the Cold War. I am not such a fan of Billy Joel and doing research etc. As to my extent of knowledge, it does refer to the years of cold war, or has some importance of it. Thanks.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
4. anonymous

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   Apr 22nd 2008 !⃝

   It's actually talking about events which are in some way tied to the Cold War or society during the years of the Cold War.
5. anonymous

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   Apr 21st 2008 !⃝

   All of you are wrong Billy Joel is saying that the problems that are going on with the world are not what we started it is what our fathers and grand fathers started although we added some flame to it we have tried to stop it
6. anonymous

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   Feb 26th 2008 !⃝

   Wow, some people are close. but seriously, every two lines is a different year, starting with 1949 to 64 or so. not counting the chorus though. and then the last stanza is 1989...the present year. It's basically saying that the world will have its ups and downs, and it's just part of life. also that, the problems there are here today(or in 1989) have roots and that the blame shouldn't be placed on the baby boom generation for the problems in the world. The end.
7. TheKidTR

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   Feb 1st 2008 !⃝

   I think "we didn't start the fire" means that we didn't want all these problems , but we keep happening and no one is chaning their ways to stop the "fire". I don't think I cracked it fully seeing I don't know why he'd just state names that have nothing to do with the "fire".
8. Loki

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   Nov 23rd 2007 !⃝

   I think that any song can be read into....what I read into this song......is our nature....the Bible....God. We didn't start the fire - but we're tried to fight it (tried being the key word). If we (man as a whole) accepted what is in the Bible - if we obeyed God....well, I think that we would have world peace......we wouldn't glorify stars....we would have a simpler life. If you pick apart each thing/person/situation - there is probably some good and some bad in each. Each had potential to be very good, but many went bad - without his guidance....with our vanity....our fighting. Man has it in his nature to fight against God. Is this what Billy Joel meant? I have no idea.....but this is what I choose think about when I hear it. :)
9. anonymous

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   Aug 4th 2007 !⃝

   You're all right. But the bottom line it's about the Baby Boomers. We didn't start it, per se. But, here we are, and look what's happening.
10. anonymous

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    Aug 1st 2007 !⃝

    No, the fire is all the problems in the world, which has never been perfect.
11. anonymous

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    Mar 4th 2007 !⃝

    I think he is just talking about all the shit that has gone down from his childhood to the time he wrote it, its just there to let people know that the world isn't perfect, and never will be, and its no one persons fault. it just happened. and it will keep happening. "We didn't start the fire, It was always burning, Since the worlds been turning"
    
    
    Thats what I think
12. anonymous

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    Nov 20th 2006 !⃝

    I believe it is about pop culture. That is the fire in question, because he is talking about what? Yes, pop culture.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
13. blue

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    Sep 15th 2006 !⃝

    I had always thought it was about how the generation before his started a bunch of problems and now his generation was left to take care of it, even though "we didn't started the fire."
    could be wrong though. =
14. anonymous

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    Jul 11th 2006 !⃝

    Has no one ever been to a history class? He was a history teacher before he hit it big being an artist. It's a timeline. I believe it starts in 1954 ish, and each stanza is a year except the last, which is I believe 1964 to 1985 or something along the close lines to that..
    
    We learned it in history just recently.
15. anonymous

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    Jun 13th 2006 !⃝

    During a recent live show, Billy said that this song was about nothing. He added, "...and who says a song has to be about anything at all?" I do agree with the interpreter that said it was about how each generation thinks the world's problems are unique to them.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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