History
The idea for the song came about when Joel was talking with someone half his age. The guy was talking about how the world was in such a big mess and it would never be resolved. Joel replied to him "I thought the same things when I was your age". The person replied: "Yeah, but you grew up in the fifties and everybody knows that nothing happened in the fifties". Not impressed by this Joel retorted: "Wait a minute, didn't you hear of Korea, the Hungarian freedom fighters or the Suez Crisis?" He said it was those headlines which formed the basic framework for the song.
Joel has said, "I'm a history nut. I devour books. At one time I wanted to be a history teacher". According to his mother, he was a bookworm by the age of seven. Unlike most of Joel's songs, the lyrics were written before the melody, owing to the somewhat unusual style of the song. The song was a huge commercial success and was Joel's third Billboard No. 1 hit. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year.
I had turned forty. It was 1989 and I said "Okay, what's happened in my life?" I wrote down the year 1949. Okay, Harry Truman was president. Popular singer of the day, Doris Day. China went Communist. Another popular singer, Johnnie Ray. Big Broadway show, South Pacific. Journalist, Walter Winchell. Athlete, Joe DiMaggio. Then I went on to 1950 . It's one of the worst melodies I've ever written. I kind of like the lyric though.Joel has said "there's an element of malevolence in the song," and how it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Joel has mixed feelings about the song. "It's a nightmare to perform live, because if I miss one word, it's a train wreck." He has also called it a "novelty song" that does not "really define me as well as album songs that probably don't get played".
Blender magazine ranked "We Didn't Start the Fire" No. 41 on its list of the "50 Worst Songs Ever", a list that also includes songs from Paul McCartney and Simon & Garfunkel. They considered the production bombastic and stated that the song "resembles a term paper scribbled the night before it’s due."
Read more about this topic: We Didn't Start The Fire
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