Paul Simon released his first single in 1958.

Was that when he was called Ben & Jerrys?

He released his first "Tom and Jerry" single in 1957.

In schools in the USA, Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start The Fire' is used to teach modern history, and introduce the class to the things they'll be looking at that term.

Pretty decent template...

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

Rosenberg’s, 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

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

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, 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

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

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

U-2, Synghman Rhee, Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

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

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Bob 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?

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

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 shore, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller Cola Wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burnin',
Since the world's been turnin'
We didn't start the fire,
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

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

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

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't...

"British Politician Sex," has always struck me as being a very non-specific line.

I've always assumed he meant John Profumo but couldn't remember his name.

Doesn't really fit in the song.

You'd need a six syllable phrase to replace it with. Maybe 'Christine Keeler got f***ed'. Or 'Rice Davies coins a phrase'.

'John Profumo got his oats'

Fangirl Three wrote:

'John Profumo got his oats'

That's seven.

cosmictanya wrote:

Fangirl Three wrote:

'John Profumo got his oats'

That's seven.

'British politician sex' has 7 syllables. Bri-tish po-li-ti-cian sex.

I really detest that Joel song.

Like so many of his songs, lyrically, they contain a really unsavoury, chest-beating/self-pitying/misanthropic subtext.

WDSTF is basically a mealy-mouthed, jingoistic, reactionary attempt to eschew America's part in the many atrocities and political crimes they committed in the 20th century and, what's more, defend and promote the hollow notion that they instead 'tried to fight' the kind of injustices they were equally responsible for.

Just throw in loads of 'flip' cultural references and names of celebrities, juxtaposed with social and international calamities and book-end it all with a truly pathetic, self-pitying, tantrumy whine of "I can't take it anymore" and you've got the perfect Billy Joel song.

For example, no mention of Operation Condor in there I notice.

I really detest Billy Joel.

And I'm not the only one.

Wot a Hater!

Fangirl Three wrote:

cosmictanya wrote:

Fangirl Three wrote:

'John Profumo got his oats'

That's seven.

'British politician sex' has 7 syllables. Bri-tish po-li-ti-cian sex.

Oh yes, you're right.

Nightjar wrote:

I really detest that Joel song.

Like so many of his songs, lyrically, they contain a really unsavoury, chest-beating/self-pitying/misanthropic subtext.

WDSTF is basically a mealy-mouthed, jingoistic, reactionary attempt to eschew America's part in the many atrocities and political crimes they committed in the 20th century and, what's more, defend and promote the hollow notion that they instead 'tried to fight' the kind of injustices they were equally responsible for.

Just throw in loads of 'flip' cultural references and names of celebrities, juxtaposed with social and international calamities and book-end it all with a truly pathetic, self-pitying, tantrumy whine of "I can't take it anymore" and you've got the perfect Billy Joel song.

For example, no mention of Operation Condor in there I notice.

I really detest Billy Joel.

And I'm not the only one.

Oh FFS.

It's not as if the British were uninvolved, although I'd doubt knowledge of that approaches what it does among the Americans, where a decent half or so of the population are fully receptive to critiques of what was done in their name in Latin America - and tens of millions are actually from there.

Right now, there are two people all over the UK media, fighting for the honour of which one most resembles the woman who sanctioned and fully supported all this torture and repression and mass murder. Do most British people know or care? No and no. You can't blame Billy Joel for that.

Whether the charge is blind ignorance or willful misrepresentation, a British person isn't able to stand on the moral high ground over an American. That's like Myra Hindley saying Rose West should never have been around children.

It's a song. I thought it was interesting that it's used as a teaching aid. You didn't need to do all this. Whether it's music, or art, there you've been waiting to cast scathing remarks about how nobody else knows what they're talking about.

On the subject of things there was no need for, I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm actually more annoyed than I was at the time - there was no need for you to use my sons name on this public website. That was totally unfair. It's not on.