I Rewrote the Lyrics to Fall Out Boy's "We Didn't Start the Fire" Sequel in Chronological Order
I’m not saying it’s good. I’m just saying it makes more sense. Because we may not have started the fire, but we've gotta keep it a controlled burn.
Let me be clear. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” — Billy Joel’s sprawling-yet-digestible pop epic covering the highlights of history from 1948-1989 — should never be remade. You just can’t do it. There’s too much to cover, and you’re bound to cover the wrong things. I’d submit the proliferation of social media coverage on memes and moments of minutia has saturated us with too many pop culture references — everything from Boaty McBoatface to the black-blue-white-gold dress — that we forget aren’t important. Billy only had a handful of those in his version: Hula Hoops, the Ford Edsel, etc. His version has a lot of actors & films, too. We’ve got too much TMZ attention saturating us with celebrities now. You just can’t do it. You SHOULDN’T do it.
But if you’re gonna do it… By God, put it in chronological order! Billy’s was in order — mostly, at least — but when Fall Out Boy dropped their sequel to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” this week, they made absolutely no effort to create any semblance of a timeline in their version.
They also failed to mention major events like COVID and the most ubiquitous pop culture figures or stories, like OJ and (like it or not) Kim Kardashian.
The song also leans heavy on events from the late 2010s onward. Take a look at this very important spreadsheet I made charting which events fall where:
Thankfully, I am the one person uniquely suited to fix this dumpster fire that Wentz & Co. started. Why? Three reasons:
I’ve seen Billy Joel in concert sixteen times, because evidently I have a problem with self-control.
When I was 11 and at the peak of my being inspired by Weird Al, I wrote a full “We Didn’t Start the Fire” parody listing the various items you can find at a grocery store. Unfortunately, most of these lyrics have been lost to the sands of time and/or a busted Dell PC hard-drive. But I do remember that I replaced the part where Billy Joel growls “TROUBLE IN THE SUEZ!” with “GOLDFISH COME IN COLORS!” — so, yeah, it was pretty great.
I’m unemployed.
So I did it. I fixed it. For you. For all of us.
First, a few notes:
It’s still not in perfect order, but it’s decently chronological, as should have been Fall Out Boy’s minimum goal.
I added a few other big historical references to fill space (i.e. COVID & #MeToo), but none that it wouldn’t make sense to include.
I replaced some words with related phrases. (i.e. “Metroid” with “video games”; “SSRIs” with “Prozac”’ and most proudly, “Iceland volcano” with its much-more-fun-to-say proper name, “Eyjafjallajökull”)
The existence of these improved lyrics should not be construed as my approval of any updated rendition of Billy Joel’s original song. I just wanted to prove it can be done and still (loosely) rhyme, even with the bizarre handful of references they FOB included.
Since Fall Out Boy doesn’t cover every year equally — and leaves entire years uncovered — each verse here represents a period of multiple years combined.
One thing Fall Out Boy got right was equating 9/11 to the JFK assassination with the “what else do I have to say?” line to end the song. You can’t really do that in a chronological version. I’ll give them that.
Without further ado, here are new lyrics: all the events from Fall Out Boy’s updated version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, placed in better, still-not-perfect-but-decently-chronological order. I’m not saying it’s good. I’m just saying it makes more sense. Because we may not have started the fire, but it’s our responsibility to keep it a controlled burn.
Michael Jordan, Captain Planet Rodney King, Lorena Bobbitt Batman movies, Oklahoma City bomb Prozac, OJ, Kurt Cobain Spielberg, video games Unabomber, Harry Potter, Williams sisters, Pokemon Bill Clinton, Y2K, Michael Jordan’s back again ’99 Woodstock, Columbine, Amazon Al Qaeda, Taliban SpongeBob Squarepants Bush-Gore Supreme Court, the towers and the Pentagon [chorus] Twilight, YouTube, MySpace Avatar, Black Parade Phelps, King James, Obama wins President Iron Man, Balloon Boy Tiger Woods in tabloids Burj Khalifa, Taylor Swift, “imma let you finish” Eyjafjallajökull Michael Jackson propofol Mars rover, Twitter, glaciers, nuclear disaster, Arab Spring, Kim Jong Un another one in Sandy Hook ISIS, Boston Marathon, Russians in Crimea [chorus] Tamir Rice and Sandra Bland Kaepernick won’t stand Prince is gone, Stranger Things, Cubs go all the way again Donald Trump & QAnon aliens and Tom DeLonge Meghan Markle, Fyre Fest, only two white rhinos left Golden State Killer caught Cambridge Analytica MeToo, Netflix, Lebanon explosion COVID-19 quarantine George Floyd, vaccines Boris Johnson, Brexit, blockage in the Suez [chorus] chaos in Afghanistan Fake news, impeachments garbage in the Great Pacific, Fermi paradox GMOs, climate change England’s got a new king Abe, Kobe, Texas goes dark Putin, Trump charged Self-driving electric cars earthquakes, deep fakes, what else do I have to say? [chorus]
See? It wasn’t that difficult. Is your OCD quelled now? I know mine is. You’re welcome, America.
Now here’s Billy Joel’s original version & the music video in all its fiery glory to wash the bad taste out of your mouth: