We didn't start the fire

We didn't start the Fire. No we didn't light it but we tried to fight it. Those chants rang out of many parties in the late 20th century. This song was written by Billy Joel and was released october 17, 1989. To me, this song is absolutely amazing. It has all of the potential to me of being one of the best songs ever.

The reoccurring line "We didn't start the fire" in the song means the people didn't start the problem. The song says many people and actions that took time during the time period and Billy Joel is saying the citizens in the world didn't start it. Whatever the problem, don't blame it on any person because it has been going on for a long time. The line after that states "no we didn't light it but we tried to fight it" This means that the problem during the time period that got everyone all mad is trying to be stopped. This line calls out all of the people in the world who try to help a clear problem that must be stopped. The brilliance of this song is that Billy Joel relates all the problems in the world at the time to a fire. It says "no we didn't light it." This line got me thinking and I came up with one conclusion. How do fires start? A person simply lights it and wallah you have a fire. Billy is saying that no one just simply lit the fire, and that it has been a fire that has been going on forever.

That is only half of the song though. The other half is all of the problems that everyone was mad at at the time. For example: "Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe." This is all people, places, and actions that took place at this time period. This first line, each thing here could have had a song written just about them. But Billy Joel brought them all together to say: "Hey everyone what all of these people/things that is happening was started long before them." The repetition in this fantastic song is also a factor. Eight times in the song Billy Joel repeats the same paragraph. He is telling everyone that you can't take all of your anger out on something that a person or place is continuing, you can only tell that place/person to stop.

To me, this song has no overall problem. There are reoccurring problems that has everyone hold anger in themselves towards, but there is no overall problem. Billy Joel is saying that there are many problems in the world, not just one huge one. He is saying that we as a whole have to tackle these problems as best we can. He is not saying to relinquish the fact that these people/places did these things. No, he is saying: "Hey world, lets attack the problem rather then the person so the whole problem will be terminated, not just one person being the victim of the ever so long problem" What I love so much about this song is Billy Joel makes you think every line. He could have written a song on each line in this masterpiece, but no. Joel decided to make one big song with a very catchy tune to make people realize his overall message.

The song "We Didn't Start the Fire" is brilliant. It makes the listener think about every single thing that Billy Joel says. It teaches the listener many things, and has quite a catchy tune which is hard to forget. This song for me will easily be on my top 5 songs ever. This song makes every listener think deeply about problems, and changes some peoples perspective on life.