We Didn’t Start The Fire: what are the lyrics to Fall Out Boy’s cover of Billy Joel’s hit?
The original classic covered a multitude of world events from 1949 to 1989, and we’ve now been brought bang up to date with this version.
The moment you’ve been waiting for: Fall Out Boy has taken over the mantle from Billy Joel and knocked out his version of the classic song, We Didn’t Start The Fire.
It may not follow the event in chronological order as per the original, but it certainly encompasses plenty of people, places and global historical headlines, bringing us right up to date. Both are like rapid fire lessons of our human past, and I’d recommend that kids out there today should go and find out more about everything mentioned in each. That’s your summer sorted and no need for a games console!
So to the music. Fall Out Boy’s release on Wednesday covers the period from 1989 (where Joel left us) and brings us up to the present day. Donald Trump’s double impeachment? Check. Boris Johnson and co’s disastrous Brexit? Check. Sandy Hook, Batman, Arab Spring, Spongebob, George Floyd, Harry Potter???? It’s all there.
3. We Didn’t Start The Fire is out everywhere now https://t.co/tR26yYzC1y pic.twitter.com/heHIQTnMMo
— Fall Out Boy (@falloutboy) June 28, 2023
What are the lyrics to Fall Out Boy’s We Didn’t Start The Fire?
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Check out the video below and try to sing along with the words. It’s a challenge!
What are the lyrics to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire?
And for those that want to relive the Billy Joel classic, here you go, with the lyrics to boot. Can you believe there are (checks abacus again) 119 different items in 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 Perón, 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 shore, 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...