Billy Joel: We Didn’t Start The Fire

October 5, 2008 · By Lovin' the 80's

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Billy Joel’s video for We Didn’t Start the Fire. The song topped the charts in 1989 and is basically a history lesson of everything that happened from 1946-89. Some have interpreted it as a protest against people blaming the baby boomer generation for all the world’s problems. VH1 called it #41 on it’s list of the 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever.

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2 Responses

  1. Jupiter

    October 5th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

    1

    ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ is not “a protest against people blaming the baby boomer generation for all the world’s problems”. The critics who interpret the song that way are the same ones who trash anything Billy Joel does because they just don’t like him. Joel himself has explained the song as nothing more than a list of headlines from the ‘Cold War’ era. He wrote it simply to point out that the world is a turbulent, ever-eventful place, and that it always was, and that it always will be. That’s it. No baby boomer cop-out or apologia intended. He has also pointed out that he thinks it’s the worst [non] melody he has ever written. If someone needs to make a list of bad songs, then trash that one for the right reasons.

  2. Lovin' the 80's

    October 5th, 2008 at 4:21 pm

    2

    Thanks for the comment Jupiter. Obviously a lot of people do like the song since it did go to #1 in 1989. He wrote the lyrics first, which accounts somewhat for the melody.


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