Today’s guest post is an analysis of Billy Joel from Chris Morgan. Want to light it? Try to fight it? Let us know in the comments.
We all know the song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” – it’s the Billy Joel song that isn’t “Piano Man” (or “You may be Right” for you Dave’s World fans out there). It’s the song where Mr. Joel sort of talk-sings his way through a bunch of names and things from history. In many ways, it is the spiritual, intelligible forefather to R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as we Know it (And I Feel Fine)” (sing it with me now: Dun duhduh, duhduhduh, Leonard Bernstein!). It also has a bad music video. However, none of that is of particular importance or interest to me. I’m much more interested in what this song says about Billy Joel.
Oh, I get it! We're in HISTORY!
For a long time, this song to me appeared to be nothing more than a bunch of history crammed into four minutes with a chorus thrown in. Then, one day I noticed the chronological unbalance of the song. The first thing mentioned in the song is in early 1949, the inauguration of Harry S Truman. The song then stretches up to its release in 1989 with the cola wars, a struggle that cost the lives of so many brave men and women. There are five different sections of the song situated around the chorus containing historical references. The fourth section ends with the lyric that probably sticks out to people the most: JFK! Blown away! Of course, that happened in November of 1963, which means the last section is left to cover 1964-1989. That’s 26 years, after four sections were given to covering 14 years.
Now, your first thought might be that Joel simply had horrible pacing issues with the song and thus needed to really pick up the pace lest he end up with a 10 minute song. Since he’s not Phish that just won’t fly. However, I instead took this as a jumping off point to really think about the song. After doing so, I realized that “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a deep look into Mr. Joel’s psyche.
After all, this song didn’t write itself. Billy Joel chose each and every fact and event to reference in this song, and he clearly did it with little to no concern about rhythm. I don’t know if any psychologist has ever thought to do this, but I think a good evaluation of somebody’s mindset would be to have them write their very own “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Have them list all the events from their lifetime they consider to be significant and see what happens. It’s less inhumane than a Skinner Box, that’s for sure.
Becomes more cruel if you imagine the loudspeaker is blaring "The Night is Still Young"
What I find particularly glaring about the final section of the song is not just that he crams so much time into it, but also what he chooses to reference. The last section, on average, has more of what I will call “negative references” or bad events. For the sake of this essay, I’ve decided to break down all the references into three categories: positive, neutral, and negative. This was also done as objectively as possible. While I consider Catcher in the Rye to be a literary travesty, it is not in and of itself a negative reference.
Through the first four sections, the breakdown is as follows:
- Of the 97 references made in the first four sections, I count 23 of them as being negative. That’s about 23.7%.
- Meanwhile, in the last section, a whopping 16 of the 24 references are what I would deem negative. That’s two thirds of them – 66.7%! Perhaps ever more telling, the final nine references are all negative, if you count “heavy metal, suicide” as negative, which in this case I do.
So what does this all mean? Why so many more positive and neutral things early and so many negative things late? Well, I think it has to do with a heaping dose of nostalgia and Joel’s unhappiness with the world was an adult. The fulcrum of the song, the JFK assassination, happened when Joel was 14. So not only are many of these things from his childhood, but obviously the JFK assassination had a big time emotional effect on people at the time. Plus, we are less world wise in our youths.
Meanwhile, as an adult he’s been well aware of what is happening in the world, and these things clearly have had a bigger impact on him than anything positive has really. Also, he mentions Wheel of Fortune, a clear sign he has put away childish things and is getting old. That very negative end stretch starts in the 1980s, when Joel was already in his 30s. He may have released a song called “Angry Young Man” in 1976, but by 1989 he was a bitter old(ish) man.
Ain't no such thing as halfway Coke. (image c/o deviantart.com)
I also find it intriguing that the final lyrics (before the last chorus, at least) are “Rock and roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore!” It’s strange he would make that the final thing noted, and also allow it to be the thing that pushes him over the edge. Then again, if Falling Down taught as anything, it’s that sometimes it is something simple that pushes you over the edge. That’s what happens in that movie, right? I only partially remember it due to watching it with people who wouldn’t stop yapping. This is why I no longer watch movies with people.
Of course, it must be noted that he didn’t write this song simply from his memories. I don’t think Joel was much into George Santayana when he was three. However, my point about seeing what Joel deemed significant for the time period is not devalued at all. Additionally, he still put the focus on his youth, and he still mentioned plenty of positive and happy things. Oscar Levant may have known Doris Day before she was a virgin, but in films such as Pillow Talk and The Tunnel of Love she was pure as the driven snow. In a way, she is as such the epitome of the memories Joel wants to have of his youth, and the kind of things he seems to have no time for as an adult. His early stanzas are littered with pop cultural stuff. Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, the Dodgers winning the World Series. The last section, again one that is covering 1964-1989, only mentions Woodstock (and does that even count?), punk rock (which is, generally, quite angry) and the aforementioned Wheel of Fortune. Clearly, and sadly, Billy Joel has stopped making pop cultural memories. Or at the very least, they’ve stopped being significant to him.
So now, perhaps you will see Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” as merely a collection of a bunch of stuff that happened. To me, it is a song in which Mr. Joel is saying, “I’m surrounded by sad, negative things as an adult and I miss my childhood.” While I myself am not one for nostalgia, given the tumultuous life Billy Joel has had, most notably the time he drove a car into a house, a moment which was lampooned endlessly on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Additionally, this is a man with a confirmed suicide attempt and who, from what I gathered reading the book Chuck Klosterman’s IV, is indeed quite bitter.
So, to me, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is quite a sad song, and a deep look into the psyche of Billy Joel. Or maybe he did just pace himself poorly and had to cram a bunch of time into one section of the song and I’m an asshole for reading this much into it. The important thing is that we can all agree the music video is dumb. That is what will bring us together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKu2QaytmrM
Chris Morgan, to ensure he can spend all his free time watching television, is a huge sports fan, and you can find his writings on the Detroit Lions and the NHL over at Examiner.com.