A Honest Review of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire”

Tom Breihan is in the middle a long series of music reviews for Stereogum. To be specific, he is reviewing every song that was #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart since 1958. You can see them all here. This week, he is up to December of 1989, in which "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel was #1 for two weeks. Breihan doesn't hold back.

I hate “We Didn’t Start The Fire” so much. I hate it with my whole being, my entire soul. I hear that nattering keyboard riff and those hyperactive bongos and “Harry Truman Doris Day,” and I become a different being. My blood becomes lava. My teeth become knives. In seconds, I could reduce a rhinoceros to ashen bone with the sheer acidity of my stomach bile. As a song, “We Didn’t Start The Fire” is a cursed and godforsaken work of torment, a towering abomination. Its sheer musical unpleasantness is, in its own way, almost impressive. If Billy Joel had actually set out to create eardrum-stabbing experimental hell-music, he couldn’t have done any better.

Okay, now tell us what you really think. I always considered “We Didn’t Start The Fire” to be a so-so song with a catchy chorus and nonsensical lyrics. To be honest, I had no great expectations for a Billy Joel song by 1989. But Breihan explains his hatred for the song, and then adds a few videos of cultural references and parodies spun from “We Didn’t Start The Fire” at Stereogum. -via Metafilter

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I get that. Billy Joel isn't in disagreement with you, there lol. They may not have had much to do with each other technically, per se...but they were all relatively important events, and in the song are mostly in chronological order. Billy Joel is a self-described history nut and was almost a history teacher. The Wiki on the song is pretty decent- it lists all the events sung about and a bit of info as to why that specified event was important, as well as a link to a page on each event, if you want to know more =)

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Didn't quite mean that, more like "historical things that have nothing to do with each other and no running theme except being placed vaguely and haphazardly in a timeline where they more or less rhyme."

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By "nonsensical lyrics" did you mean "legitimate historical figures, places, and events" ?

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I wouldn't play it at a wedding, but that's not the purpose of the song. On study.com they said it was written in response to someone telling Billy Joel that it was more difficult to grow up in the 80s. Billy Joel was showing all the conflicts and difficulties since his birth in the 40s to prove a point. So the musical style fits the purpose of the song. The song had to be fast pace , panicky, and anxiety inducing to get through the list of events (around 120 or so) and express the feeling of the events. In that sense, it's a great song and one that I have always liked and appreciated. Thought provoking too:. What would we write in it today? Stings equivalent to this song would be "I Hope the Russians love their Children too".
We are always quoting "We Didn't Start the Fire" around the home. I think another article on Neatorama said a song with a repetitive lyrics also is more likely to reach the top 10 charts, so that could be a possibility too.