A Brief History of the World from 1949 to 1989

Billy Joel’s Song We Didn’t Start the Fire  (with lyrics) is a great summary of history for the second half of the 20th century.  The lyrics include brief rapid-fire allusions to more than 100 headline event between January 1949 and the song publication in 1989.  

Joel, a self-described history nut, wanted to be a history teacher when he was younger.  The idea for the song arose when someone on the verge of turning 21 who thought the world was in an unfixable mess.  Joel responded that he had though the same thing when he was 21, to which the person responded “yeah, but you grew up in the 50s and everybody knows that nothing happened in the 50s.” Joel sat down to write the song and said to himself “Ok, what’s happened in my life”  I wrote down the year 1949 and listed what he recalled as headlines of the day.  Then he moved on to 1950 and so forth.  

Said Joel, “It’s one of the worst melodies I’ve ever written.  I kind of like the lyric though.”  Joel says he has mixed feelings about the song because “it’s a nightmare to perform live, because if I miss one word, it’s a train wreck.”

The metaphorical fire referred to that keeps burning is the fire of global tragedy, scandal and screw-ups which will continue as long as the world continues as it is currently.  The Encyclopedia Britannica at this link presents a brief explanation of each of the 119 historical reference that Billy Joel references.

Billy Joel became a history teacher after all.