We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel - Videos Page - One Final Serenade: The Songs of Billy Joel (Billy Joel Fan Site) (Billy Joel Lyrics)

We Didn't Start The Fire - Videos Page
(Storm Front) (1989)

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

Rosenbergs, 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

Josef 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
U2, Syngman 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,
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
J.F.K. 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 shores, 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 burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will 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 start the fire

Official music video for "We Didn't Start The Fire" (1989). Read an interview with the women, including actress Marlee Matlin who appeared in the video at Noblemania.

Official music video with lyrics in English and Spanish.

Great fan-made video by Matthew Manley for "We Didn't Start The Fire," particularly on incorporating Time Magazine covers.

Alternative version of the music video.

From William Kelly: "NBC made a self promotional on how far TV has come. They used Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire"... I worked for a TV station for 29 yrs. & found this tape a few days before I left the station."

Live version from "Live at Yankee Stadium" (1990)

Live performance from The Grammy Award Show (1990).

Live at the Millennium Concert, New Year's Eve (1999).

Live at Shea Stadium (2008).

The Making of "We Didn't Start The Fire"

Billy humorously discusses how he wrote "We Didn't Start The Fire" (audio only).

Billy discusses how he came up with "We Didn't Start The Fire." And here is an explanation of each of the persons, places, and events mentioned in the song.

Billy discussed how the song originally started as a country song he wrote, called "Jolene" Go to 1:11 in the video.

Billy discusses "We Didn't Start The Fire" on SiriusXM (2016) (audio only).

Cover Versions

This is my favorite cover version of "We Didn't Start The Fire," by the Hoosiers. Their version on Live from Abby Road is amazing.

Milo Greene's cover of "We Didn't Start The Fire."