Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire (Historically Accurate Almanac) COMPLETE
5,902,438
Published 2017-06-19
'We Didn't Start The Fire' music video with historically accurate news coverage accompanying all 100+ events mentioned. Been meaning to get to this for my entire life. I hope you enjoy and thank you for watching. Lyrics in video description.
Music: We Didn't Start The Fire | Billy Joel
Video: Historic Archives 1949-1989
Edited: Dr. J Robert Oppenheimer ([email protected])
Song: We Didn't Start The Fire
Artist: Bill Joel
Album: Storm Front
Original Release Date: September 27, 1989
Release Date: October 20, 1998
Copyright: 1989 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
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, Khrushchev
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, 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
U-2, 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
J.F.K. 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
It will 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
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
All Comments (21)
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somehow this song makes this quarantine stuff seem more normal
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Now for those who don't know, Billy Joel wrote this song because a young man visited him in the studio and told him that "It's crazy to be my age. But you didn't have anything going on when you were growing up. Nothing really happened." And so Mr. Joel proceeded to list the major historical world wide events that happened from the time he was born (May of 1949) until 1989, which ultimately became this song which he calls "A birthday gift" to himself because he was turning 40 the year this song was released.
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Them: You can't summarize an entire century in 5 minutes Billy Joel: It's rewind time
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As a history nut my angst reaches uncharted levels at “Belgians in the Congo,” and it just keeps going.
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If he makes a part two 2020 is going to need a whole verse
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I feel like this song covers everything captain America missed
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I like how the montage of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Dictators, Assassinations and various other tragedies all just culminated into the feud between Pepsi and Coke lol
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Perfectly captures the feeling of that moment when you know you're living through history.
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We didn't start the fire but we added to the pyre and we built it higher.
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I'm 75 years old----while watching , a few tears came down---I remember most of this---- both good and bad! Vietnam Vet--25 years a policeman. And the fire continues!
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As the song continues, it has a sting of anger, and descent into madness. Things tumbling down decade by decade.
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Very good video. Just wanted to offer one bit of clarification. "Heavy Metal Suicide" was a reference in the song to Judas Priest being sued by the parents of two teenage boys who attempted suicide while listening to their album Stained Class
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It just gets more depressing the longer it goes!
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I was in high school when this came out. My history teacher decided that even though we were studying the 19th century at the time (the course was supposed to be linear), we would skip to current events and analyse each instance Billy Joel mentioned in this song. It was brilliant-I remember almost all of them! Amazing what the right motivation can do!
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"China's under martial law" Wow that's weird he suddenly vanished!
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I am 18 so never experienced any of this, also didn't realized what the song was talking about. This is a masterpiece.
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The ultimate copyright strike
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I just noticed that the lyrics are in chronological order. They cover roughly 40 years of events. I would love to see an updated version of this in 2030.
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Can you imagine going back in time and witnessing some of these historical moments. Not being able to stop any of them but to just be there in person. Crazy
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I did not expect to fully see JFKs head explode in this video.
