We didn't start the fire
We Didn't Start the Fire (in German about “ We didn't start the fire ”) is a pop song by the singer and songwriter Billy Joel . It was released in October 1989 on his album Storm Front and previously as a single in September 1989 and reached number 1 on the US Billboard charts .
In Germany he stayed in the top ten for a total of ten weeks from autumn 1989 to spring 1990 ; the best place was fourth.
Content and background
What is unusual about this piece is the structure of the text, which - apart from the refrain - consists almost exclusively of a string of catchwords on more or less important contemporary historical topics from 1949, the year of Joel's birth, to 1989, the year of publication. The list is initially arranged chronologically according to years, in the last stanza the period from 1964 to 1989 is skimmed over in less detail. Names of personalities from politics and culture, political and social events, titles of films, books and plays as well as objects are mentioned. The refrain refers to the fact that these problems had existed long before. In some places paraphrases are also used. This way, approximately 120 topics are addressed in 4:50 minutes.
Billy Joel explains the motivation for this piece with his interest in history. Had he not made a career as a musician, he would allegedly have liked to become a history teacher. The idea for the song arose when a 21-year-old friend of Sean Lennon's told Joel that not much had happened in the 1950s ("everybody knows that nothing happened in the fifties"). Joel referred to the Suez Crisis and the Korean War . The memory of the headlines since then eventually got him on the lyrics.
Instead of the apt translation "We did not start the fire" , the literal translation "We did not start the fire " is sometimes used. The title, however, does not refer to a shootout ( "We did not open fire" - in English "to open fire"). The chorus includes expressly that the fire always burned ( "it was always burning") and mentioned that we did not ignite it ( "we did not light it").
List of terms listed in the text
1949 | Harry Truman | American President (1945–1953) begins his second term on January 20 | ||
Doris Day | American film actress and singer, who started her screen career in 1948, becomes famous | |||
Red China | Proclamation of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong on October 1st | |||
Johnnie Ray | one of the most popular American singers of the 1950s begins his career this year | |||
South Pacific | Musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein will premiere on April 7th | |||
Walter Winchell | American journalist and inventor of the gossip column | |||
Joe DiMaggio | American baseball player becomes the first professional athlete to sign a contract with an annual salary of $ 100,000 on February 7; later husband of Marilyn Monroe | |||
1950 | Joe McCarthy | American Senator , begins a campaign against an alleged infiltration of high American state offices by communism (see also McCarthy era ) | ||
Richard Nixon | is elected to the US Senate | |||
Studebaker | American automaker , builds millionth post-war car | |||
television | At the beginning of the 1950s, television became a mass medium | |||
North Korea, South Korea | Beginning of the Korean War between North and South Korea | |||
Marilyn Monroe | first important roles for the US actress and future wife of Joe DiMaggio in Asphalt Jungle and All About Eva | |||
1951 | Rosenbergs | The espionage trial against Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins | ||
H-bomb | Hydrogen bomb (The first detonation of an H-bomb did not take place until November 1, 1952.) | |||
Sugar Ray | Sugar Ray Robinson, boxer, becomes world middleweight champion | |||
Panmunjeom | Place of signature of the Korean War Armistice Agreement | |||
Brando | Marlon Brando, American actor, becomes a Hollywood star with the film Endstation Sehnsucht | |||
The King and I | Richard Rodgers musical premiered on March 29th | |||
The catcher in the rye | Publication of The Catcher in the Rye , a novel by JD Salinger | |||
1952 | Eisenhower | Election of Dwight D. Eisenhower, American President (1953–1961) | ||
Vaccine | Jonas Salk tested on July 2, he developed vaccine against polio , among others, himself and his family | |||
England's got a new Queen | With the death of her father King George VI. Elizabeth II becomes Queen of Great Britain on February 6th | |||
Marciano | Rocky Marciano, boxer, becomes world heavyweight champion | |||
Liberace | American entertainer | |||
Santayana good-bye | George Santayana, philosopher and author, dies on September 26th | |||
1953 | Joseph Stalin | Soviet politician, dies March 5th | ||
Malenkov | Georgi Maximilianowitsch Malenkow, Stalin's successor for a few months | |||
Wetter | Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian President | |||
Prokofiev | Sergei Prokofiev, composer, dies on March 5th | |||
Rockefeller | Winthrop Rockefeller, Arkansas Governor | |||
Campanella | Roy Campanella, American baseball player | |||
Communist block | Eastern bloc | |||
1954 | Roy Cohn | American lawyer persecutes followers of communism | ||
Juan Perón | last full year as President of Argentina | |||
Toscanini | Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor, is making his last recordings this year | |||
Dacron | Brand name for a synthetic fiber, see polyethylene terephthalate | |||
Điện Biên Phủ falls | greatest defeat of the French in the Indochina War | |||
Rock around the clock | Song by Bill Haley & His Comets | |||
1955 | Einstein | Albert Einstein, founder of the theory of relativity , dies on April 18th | ||
James Dean | American film actor, dies in a car accident on September 30th | |||
Brooklyn ’s got a winning team | the Brooklyn Dodgers , American baseball team, win the World Series Championships | |||
Davy Crockett | American politician and war hero (1786–1836); starts a television series about him produced by Walt Disney ; Development of the tactical nuclear missile Davy Crockett (W54) | |||
Peter Pan | Animated cartoon by Walt Disney | |||
Elvis Presley | American musician, signs his contract with RCA Records on November 21st | |||
Disneyland | the first of the amusement parks opened on July 17th | |||
1956 | Bardot | Brigitte Bardot, French film actress, has worldwide success with the feature film And always women beckon | ||
Budapest | the Hungarian uprising begins on October 23 with a large demonstration in Budapest | |||
Alabama | Montgomery Bus Boycott | |||
Khrushchev | Nikita Sergejewitsch Khrushchev, Soviet politician, criticized the personality cult around Stalin in a secret speech | |||
Princess Grace | Grace Kelly , marries Prince Rainier III. from Monaco | |||
Peyton Place | Publication of the bestselling novel by US writer Grace Metalious | |||
Trouble in the Suez | Suez crisis | |||
1957 | Little rock | Little Rock Nine | ||
Pasternak | Boris Pasternak, Russian writer, publishes his first and only novel, Doctor Zhivago | |||
Mickey Mantle | American baseball player | |||
Kerouac | Jack Kerouac, American writer, publishes his novel On the Move | |||
sputnik | first flight of the Soviet space missions on October 4th | |||
Chou En-lai | Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China | |||
Bridge on the River Kwai | Publication of the Oscar-winning film adaptation of The Bridge on the Kwai | |||
1958 | Lebanon | Lebanon crisis | ||
Charles de Gaulle | French resistance fighter and president is charged with forming a government | |||
California baseball | The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, and become the first US baseball teams west of Kansas City as the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants . | |||
Starkweather homicide | Charles Starkweather , American serial killer | |||
Children of Thalidomide | Contergan children | |||
1959 | Buddy Holly | American singer and songwriter, dies in a plane crash on February 3 | ||
Ben Hur | Film adaptation of the novel by Lew Wallace | |||
Space monkey | Monkeys in space as part of the Mercury program | |||
mafia | Economic activities of the Cosa Nostra in the USA | |||
Hula hoops | The advent of the hula hoop | |||
Castro | Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, comes to power | |||
Edsel is a no-go | Ford car model with little sales success | |||
1960 | U-2 | U-2 crisis, US spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union | ||
Syngman Rhee | President of South Korea, emigrated to the USA (Hawaii) in 1960 | |||
Payola | Bribery scandal in the music industry | |||
kennedy | John F. Kennedy, President of the USA (1961–1963), wins the November presidential election against Richard Nixon | |||
Chubby checker | American twist musician | |||
Psycho | Publication of the Hitchcock novel adaptation of Robert Bloch's book | |||
Belgians in the Congo | Operation Dragon Rouge and Dragon Noir , Congo Independence | |||
1961 | Hemingway | Ernest Hemingway, American writer commits on July 2 suicide | ||
Eichmann | Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking National Socialist war criminal, is caught by the Mossad in Argentina | |||
Stranger in a Strange Land | Publication of the novel Stranger in a Strange World by Robert A. Heinlein | |||
Dylan | Bob Dylan, American musician, signs a record deal with Columbia Records | |||
Berlin | Construction of the Berlin Wall begins | |||
Bay of Pigs Invasion | failed attempt at a CIA-supported invasion of Cubans in exile against the revolutionary government under Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs | |||
1962 | Lawrence of Arabia | Release of the Oscar-winning film Lawrence of Arabia | ||
British Beatlemania | The Beatles will release their first single Love Me Do in the UK on October 5th | |||
Ole Miss | the black student James Meredith can, thanks to federal troops at the University of Mississippi enroll | |||
John Glenn | first American astronaut in earth orbit (see Mercury Atlas 6 ) | |||
Liston beats Patterson | Boxing match for the heavyweight title on September 25th | |||
1963 | Pope Paul | Pope Paul VI is selected | ||
Malcolm X | a leader of the American black movement caused outrage with his comment "... the chickens coming home to roost ..." on Kennedy's murder | |||
British politician sex | Profumo affair | |||
JFK blown away | John F. Kennedy , murder of the US President on November 22nd | |||
1964-1989 | Birth control | prevention | ||
Ho Chi Minh | Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman | |||
Richard Nixon back again | was elected American president in 1968, making his political comeback | |||
Moonshot | Apollo 11 , the first manned moon landing | |||
Woodstock | Music festival of the hippie movement | |||
Watergate | Affair that led to Nixon's resignation | |||
Punk rock | Origin of the punk music genre | |||
Begin | Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel | |||
Reagan | Ronald Reagan, American President | |||
Palestine | Palestinian Territories in the Middle East Conflict | |||
Terror on the airline | Members of the PLO hijack aircraft and destroy aircraft | |||
Ayatollah's in Iran | Ruhollah Khomeini | |||
Russians in Afghanistan | Soviet-Afghan War | |||
Wheel of Fortune | TV game show, in German-speaking countries: Wheel of Fortune | |||
Sally Ride | American astronaut, first American woman in space | |||
Heavy metal suicide | Trials against Ozzy Osbourne ( Black Sabbath ) and the band Judas Priest , accused by parents of conveying subliminal calls for suicide in their music | |||
Foreign debts | rising foreign debt due to the severely negative trade balance of the United States | |||
Homeless Vets | Homelessness among American War Veterans | |||
AIDS | Spread of the immunodeficiency disease | |||
Crack | Cocaine-based drug with very high potential for addiction | |||
Bernie Goetz | In 1984 Bernhard Goetz shot four young people in the New York subway who wanted to rob him | |||
Hypodermics on the shore | Medical waste washed up from the Fresh Kills Landfill to surrounding beaches in 1987/88 | |||
China's Under Martial Law | State of emergency in the People's Republic of China after the Tian'anmen massacre on the Gate of Heavenly Peace | |||
Rock and Roller Cola Wars | Cola war between Coca-Cola and Pepsi flares up in the form of lavish advertising with musicians |
Parodies
The Hessian comedy duo Badesalz wrote a modified version with the title Wie willste your eggs , the Austrian rapper Money Boy published a parody called Big Eggs , Otto Waalkes wrote the version We Have Reason to Celebrate , which lists a number of alcoholic drinks , and in 1995 JBO published the version Mir sta'dd'n etz die Celebration , which lists sights and various other facilities in Erlangen , the hometown of the fun metal band. The NDR satirical magazine extra 3 created a humorous song on the Munich football club under the title Mir san der FC Bayern , in which, among other things, criminal machinations of board members as well as self-righteousness and arrogance are discussed. The comedian duo Elsterglanz released the song with new lyrics as Wir sind totally stupid on their album In der Ding: Der Staat gegen Godzilla .
The song They'll Never Stop The Simpsons from the television series The Simpsons is based in part on the song by Billy Joel.
The British comedy music duo Amateur Transplants has also covered this song under the title Finals Countdowns . It lists various topics of a final medical exam.
On the occasion of their 20th anniversary, the Dutch band De Heideroosjes also covered the song under the title De Wereld Draait Door , in which, as in the original, they enumerate historical turning points from the years 1989 to 2009.
Awards for music sales
Country / Region | Award | Sales |
---|---|---|
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales) |
||
Australia (ARIA) | platinum | 70,000 |
Canada (MC) | gold | 50,000 |
United States (RIAA) | platinum | 1,000,000 |
United Kingdom (BPI) | gold | 400,000 |
All in all |
2 × gold, 2 × platinum |
1,520,000 |
Main article: Billy Joel / Music Sales Awards
Web links
- Original text on billyjoel.com
- Background to the lyrics
- Interview with background information on the creation of the song
- Solveig Grothe: 25 years of "We didn't start the fire" - world history in 291 seconds . Spiegel Online, September 25, 2014
Individual evidence
- ↑ release date
- ↑ https://www.onefinalserenade.com/we-didnt-start-the-fire.html
- ^ AS Hornby: Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English . Oxford University Press, Sixth Impression 1977, p. 598