"We Didn't Start the Fire" Lyrics & Links

Fan Video of We Didn't Start the Fire

"We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel

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

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

Josef Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu and "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 

CHORUS

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "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

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo 

CHORUS

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 
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

CHORUS

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon, back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock 
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollolah'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...

(Adapted from http://www.teacheroz.com/fire.htm)

"We Didn't Start the Fire" (Facts) History Summary from 1949-1989 : http://www.school-for-champions.com/history/start_fire_facts.htm

Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" - About The Song (from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2700488

The links below are courtesy of http://www.patkeefe.com/joel/joelwebquest.html

 Forties

Fifties

Sixties

Seventies

Eighties

 Nineties

 A Biography of America: World War II (The Forties)

Recent American History- 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's

 Recent American History- 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's

Recent American History- 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's

 Recent American History- 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's

 Recent American History- 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's

 Kids View of World War II

 A Biography of America: The Fifties

 A Biography of America: The Sixties

 A Biography of America: Contemorary History

 A Biography of America: Contemorary History

A Biography of America: Contemorary History

 Voices of the Holacaust

 Fifties Boulevard- Great graphics!

 The Psychedelic

60's

  70s Flashback

  80's Flashback

 90's Flashback

 Photographs from the Great Depression to WWII

 Fifties Web

 Music of the 60's

 Stuck in the 70's

 The 80's by Triplets R Us

 In the 90s

 World War II General Resources

  Fifties Tunes

 Sixties British Pop Culture

4 the 70's

 80s.Com

American Top 40 (Music) -90's

 Shorty 40's

 Online Korean War Resources

 60's music

 Super Seventies Rock Site

 Ultimate 80's Songs

 The Top 22 Signs You've Had Too Much of the 90's

 Joe DiMaggio

1914-1999

 Literature and Culture of the 1950's

 Woodstock

  Timeline of the 70's

 Timeline of the 80's

  Timeline of the 90's

 20th Century America: A Pictorial 1940s- Houston Chronicle

 Korean War Project

 Rockument

  70's Preservation Society

 Interactive 80s Network

 90's Entertainment Trivia (a quiz)

 

Nifty Fifties

 Lyndon Johnson Library

 In the 70s

 Awesome 80s

 Noble 90's

 

 The Important Things About the Fifties

 Abstract Art

 About.com Culture 70's

 In the 80s

 20th Century America: A Pictorial 1990s- Houston Chronicle

 

 20th Century America: A Pictorial 1950s- Houston Chronicle

 Vietnam War

Watergate

Amazing 80's

 Y2K Issues- Houston Chronicle

 

 From Jim Crow to Linda Brown

 60s Flashback

Disco Decade

 20th Century America: A Pictorial 1980s- Houston Chronicle

1990's General History

 

1950's General History

 The Sixties Project

 Totally 70's

 The Berlin Wall a Decade Later- Houston Chronicle

 

 

 

 Cold War Links

Robin Remembers the 70's

1980's General History

 

 

 

 Vietnam War Internet Project

 20th Century America: A Pictorial 1970s- Houston Chronicle

 

 

 

 

 Sixties Net

1970's General History

 

 

 

 

The Language of Hip

 

 

 

 

 

 About.com Culture 60's

 

 

 

 

 

 Psychadelic Sixties

 

 

 

 

 

 The Sixties- A Magic Webquest Ride

 

 

 

 

 

 Battlefield: Vietnam- PBS site

 

 

 

 

 

 JFK-35th Anniversary from the AP

 

 

 

 

 

 Man on the Moon- Houston Chronicle

 

 

 

 

 

 When we met the Beatles-Houston Chronicle

 

 

 

 

 

 20th Century America: A Pictorial 1960s- Houston Chronicle

 

 

 

 

 

1960's General History

 

 

 

 

 Media Links

General

Culture/Sports/Science Links

 Future Links

 General History Links

 CD Now

 Century in Shoes

 Future Music

 History Channel

 Clipland

 Food Timeline

 Space Future

 American History 102

 MP3 2000

 Ad Access

 Future of Sports

 American Cultural History- Web Guides to the decades in American History

 CNN.com VideoSelect

 Invention Timelines

 Visions for the Third Millenium

 American Memories Library of Congress collection of primary resources and archival items

AltaVista Video Search

 Movies.com

 Close Shave with an Asteroid

 National Archives: The Digital Classroom click on "Primary sources and Activities"

Time/Life Pictures

 Internet Movie Database

 "FUTURE MAP OF NORTH AMERICA"

 The History Net- another source of primary sources

 History and Politics Aloud

 Stitches in time: The design of fashion from 1900-1999

Issues for the Millenium- Houston Chronicle- Links about Race, Energy, Computers, Climate

 The History Buff

 The History Buff-

Historic Voices and History Bytes

 Fashion Trends Resources

 

 Historian's Database: United States- Oraganized by topics AND Decade

 Audio Artifacts-

Real Audio files

 20th Century Inventions

 Life in the Future Sites-

Lots of links about the future

 History Timelines... The History Beat- Scroll Down to find various timelines

 Webcorp Mulitmedia Archive- Historical Videos and sounds (look for .wav or .mpeg files)

 As Seen On TV Music-

Lists of songs by decades

 Home of the Future Research Resources-

Lots of links about the future

 World History Compass- United States Index

 Oldies Music

 20th Century American Culture

 Peek into the Home of the Future

 20th Century Decades: General Links

 CNN-Sports Illustrated (Multimedia Archive)

 History of the Olympic Games

 NBC TODAY: The Car of the Future

 National Women's History Project

Hulton Archive Photos- Collection of 40 Million images; Need to login with created name and password

 Classic Rock

 Floating City

 Histor E Search.com

 

Cars of the 20th Century - Top 10

 Automotive Predictions

 History Place

 

Archives of a Rock Photographer

 Designing the Car of the Future

 You teach the Decades Webquest

 "We Didn't Start the Fire"- The History Behind Billy Joel's Song

 Back To The Past- Essay on 1950's automobiles

In the Car of the Future

 Timesliders

 

 Science Timeline

 Towards the Car of the Future

 Walk Through The Decades

 "We Didn't Start the Fire"-Another History Behind Billy Joel's Song

 Infoplease Sports

 

 20th Century Decades Resources

 We Didn't Start the Fire"- More links to the song

 Infoplease Society and Culture

 

 Decades Links

 

 Infoplease Entertainment

 

 Decades Links

 Creating the iMovie "We Didn't Start the Fire"

 Technology Timeline

 

 20th Century History By the Decades

  We Didn't Start the Fire"-

 History of Science and Technology : A Timeline

 

 Decades Project

 The Decades Project

 International Boxing Hall of Fame- Links about famous boxers

 

 Century of Social Change-Lists significant social changes that have occurred over the last century

 Burningbird

 NASA Histroical Archive

 

 Infoplease-20th Century Year by Year

 

 Twentieth Century Medical Milestones

 

 20th Century in words and pictures-by the Associated Press- Has some video clips

 

 The Sports Century- Houston Chronicle

 

 Yesterdayland

 

 The History of Automobiles

 

 America Dreams

 

 Coca-Cola Advertising

 

 Doing the Decades

 

 American Music from 1950- Present

 

 Decades Show

Updated October 16, 2006 by R. Hennessey & T. Burmeister