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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   Jun 6th 2006 !⃝

   He is telling of everything that happend in his life thus far , which was back in the '80s not all were bad but it was a flash back of differnt things that happend in his life. But he doesn't mention some stuff like vietnam , he only says Ho Chi Minh .

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
2. JonahFalcon

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   May 18th 2006 !⃝

   Wow, talk about misinterpreting a song.
   
   According to Billy Joel, the song is about how people behave as if the world they're living in is unique, and how the past is overly nostaglicized (think "Amarcord"), when in reality, the problems happening now are nothing new -- the past isn't always romantic, nor is it dire, either.
   
   He also showed the connection between the past and the present.
3. anonymous

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   Apr 29th 2006 !⃝

   The 'we' bit is not about the common people, rather it is about the good old USA.

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

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   Mar 11th 2006 !⃝

   This song is about passion. The passion in all of the people/events come together as a whole, the "fire", if you will. Not one single person/event started this fire. It is not until they all come together when the fire is whole.

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

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   Dec 24th 2005 !⃝

   The second person to interpret was a little better but still incorrect. The song is a timeline from the time around Joel's birth till the time he wrote the song. The chorus just simply states that the world is turning and we don't know why but it just does and this is what happens to us because of it. This song is studied in many history classes to get an idea of when things happened and in what order.
6. anonymous

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   Jun 26th 2005 !⃝

   The previous user who interpreted this song was incorrect. While Billy Joel does list several catostrophic world events, he also talks about good things like "Joe Dimagio" and "Dorris Day."
   
   Joel explains during a concert on one of his live albums that he wanted to make a list of all the things that happened in his life from the point he was born to the point where he had been practicing this exercise. He then realized he could make a great song about it, and 'We didn't start the fire' was born.
7. Duran Fan

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   Jun 19th 2005 !⃝

   This song is about all of the problems in the world, and how it's not the fault of the common people that we have so many problems on Earth. It says, "We didn't start the fire, it was always burnin' since the world's been turning."

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