Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio (1949)

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe (1950)

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom,
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951)

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new Queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana good bye (1952)

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.

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev,
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc (1953)

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock" (1954)

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland (1955)

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev,
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez (1956)
CHORUS
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957)

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather, homicide, children of Thalidomide (1958)

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia,
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go (1959)

U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo (1960)
CHORUS
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land",
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion (1961)

"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson (1962)

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK blown away, what else do I have to say? (1963)
CHORUS
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again (1964)
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock (1969)
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan. (1980)

"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! (1980)

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...