It Was Always Burnin'

It Was Always Burnin'


You think you have no "Sympathy for the Devil?"

         The evilness was always there. So was the good. History burns on, and on . . . .



We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel

This song is on the Storm Front Album (1989).



('49) Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

('50) Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

('51) Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"

('52) Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new Queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

CHORUS
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

('53) Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

('54) Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

('55) Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

('56) Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

CHORUS

('57) Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"

('58) Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, Children of Thalidomide

('59) Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

('60) U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

CHORUS

('61) Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

('62) "Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

('63) Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

CHORUS

('64 - '89) 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

CHORUS

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on..."

(Draft--this was difficult!)

('89-'03) Freddy Kruger, NRA, Desert Storm, DNA
Jerry Springer, paparazzi, Wall falls down

Koresh, market crash, land mine, Columbine
How many more kids on earth must die?

Dolly, embassy, Rodney King, Fox TV
SNL turns 25, Harrison's "Sweet Lord"

Infomercials, CDs, white Bronco on TV
Internet, Johnny Depp, stain on a blue dress

CHORUS

Bill Gates, tax rebates, Presidental debates
Mad Cow, MADD mothers, ladies' botox

Superman, Elian, terrorism's in the land
Baseball's on strike, James Byrd's not white
Will we ever get it right?

Wolf Blitzer, Trade Center, terrorist caves
Space Station, Pentagon, Mandela, jihad

Oprah, Y2K, King Hussein, acid rain
Shuttle spacecraft blows again
Are we going where we've been?

Schwartzkoff, Gorbachev, trouble with the UN
And it starts all back again.

CHORUS

Bill and Hillary, NYC, and HIV
George Foreman, Titanic, Powell at the UN

JFK in the bay, Michael Jordan's back today
Kuwait, gas rate, Middle Eastern soldier's gate

Saddam, Iraq, Ali, Arafat
Palestine, Spielberg, dot com, alert

CHORUS

We didn't start the fire
It was always burnin'
Since the world was turnin'
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we're trying to fight it.