We Didn't Start the Fire  is a song by Billy Joel that lists major world events from 1949 to 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front . Joel explained that he wrote this song due to his interest in history. He commented that he would have wanted to be a history teacher had he not become a rock and roll singer!

A brief overview of each historical reference can be viewed by moving your mouse over the text & icons in the lyrics below, with information from Wikipedia and other sources. If you click on any reference, that topic will open as "pre-searched" in Google. Clicking the w next to each reference will take you to the corresponding Wikipedia page.

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Lyrics:

1949  

Harry Truman  , Doris Day   , Red China   , Johnnie Ray  
South Pacific   , Walter Winchell   , Joe DiMaggio  
1950
Joe McCarthy   , Richard Nixon   , Studebaker   , Television   ,
North Korea   , South Korea   , Marilyn Monroe  
1951
Rosenbergs   , H-bomb   , Sugar Ray   , Panmunjom  
Brando   , "The King and I"   and "The Catcher in the Rye"  
1952
Eisenhower   , Vaccine   , England's got a new queen   ,
Marciano   , Liberace   , Santayana   goodbye.

CHORUS
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

1953
Joseph Stalin   , Malenkov   , Nasser   and Prokofiev  
Rockefeller   , Campanella   , Communist Bloc  
1954
Roy Cohn   , Juan Peron   , Toscanini   , Dacron  
Dien Bien Phu   falls, "Rock Around the Clock"  
1955
Einstein   , James Dean   , Brooklyn's got a winning team  
Davy Crockett   , Peter Pan   , Elvis Presley   , Disneyland  
1956
Bardot   , Budapest   , Alabama   , Krushchev  
Princess Grace   , "Peyton Place"   , Trouble in the Suez  

CHORUS

1957
Little Rock   , Pasternak   , Mickey Mantle   , Kerouac  
Sputnik   , Chou En-Lai   , "Bridge on the River Kwai"  
1958
Lebanon   , Charles de Gaulle   , California baseball  
Starkweather   , Homicide   , Children of Thalidomide  
1959
Buddy Holly   , "Ben Hur"   , Space Monkey   , Mafia  
Hula Hoop   , Castro   , Edsel is a no-go  
1960
U-2   , Syngman Rhee   , Payola   and Kennedy  
Chubby Checker   , "Psycho"   , Belgians in the Congo  

CHORUS

1961
Hemingway   , Eichmann   , "Stranger in a Strange Land"  
Dylan   , Berlin   , Bay of Pigs invasion  
1962
"Lawrence of Arabia"   , British Beatlemania  
Ole Miss   , John Glenn   , Liston beats Patterson  
1963
Pope Paul   , Malcolm X   , British politician sex  
JFKblown away   , what else do I have to say

CHORUS

1964 - 1989
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

CHORUS

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...