We Didn't Start the Fire

Listen while you read:  Watch it!

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 it

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 . . .

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou-En-Lai, 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
U-2, Syngman Rhee, Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

We didn't start the fire . . . 

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 . . . 

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 . . . 

~  Billy Joel

"They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen." So said our own Dear Leader yesterday, and today, we're all just a little nervous. I tried to console myself with the fact that I have lived through a lot of years and a lot of fears. But there's a part of me that is still that frightened little kid watching my parents glued to the TV set during the Cuban Missile Crisis and wondering if the world was going to end. "We Didn't Start the Fire" appears on 1989's Storm Front.

Here's something I didn't know. Every two lines of the song represent a year, starting with 1949, the year Billy Joel was born. That seemed to bear true until I found a big chunk of years missing. The events go from "JFK blown away" (1963) to a mish-mash of stuff that happened from 1969 through the 80s. (What happened to 1964 - 1968? A lot of things, as I recall!) Well, I guess Billy Joel either got tired of it all (I can't take it anymore) or he knew he'd never be able to remember all the verses to perform in concert. And by the way, Joel isn't fond of this song, claiming it has no melody.

When we're scared or angry, we often turn to art or humor or recreation, all attempts to distract us from our fear. I offer you a new verse for "We Didn't Start the Fire," compliments of my frazzled brain:

Build the Wall, fake news, Muslim ban, rallies HUGE
Wiki-Leaks, Golden Showers, wire taps at Trump Towers
Reince Priebus, Mike Flynn, Sean Spicer, win-win
Sally Yates, James Comey, Preet Bharara, follow the money

Scaramucci, Kellyanne, Make America Hate Again
Paris Accord, TrumpCare, orange skin, yellow hair
Mar-a-Lago, Kim Jung Un, NRA, get your guns
Russian ties, White House Dump, tax returns? IMPEACH TRUMP!

There's a lot more material out there, in case you want to write your own verses. And remember, if you didn't vote for Trump, you didn't start the fire.

But when we are gone
It will still burn on and on and on
And on and on and on and on . . .