The Story Behind Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire: A History Lesson in a Song

One day Billy Joel was working on material for a new album he would later call Storm Front, when a famous friend came by with a guest, grumbling about how hard it was to be coming of age in the 80s, but Joel, nearly 25 years older, recalled similar challenges when he was a teenager, the young man dismissed his empathy, saying Nothing bad happened in your day… When the obstinate young man left, The piano man was compelled to write a song that covered all of the stuff that had impacted the world during his lifetime. From the H Bomb to the Aids epidemic... The song became an international pop culture commemorative called WE Didn’t Start the Fire. yet the author regarded it as one of the worst compositions of his career. It was so wordy this artist said if he missed one word in concert it became a total train wreck… It was a novelty song that became one of the biggest #1 hit of the year 1989. The story of this smash… and all of its irony… is NEXT on Professor of Rock.

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