We Didn’t Start the Fire: 2020 Edition

Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire is a demarcation song: people like it or hate it with a passion. I’m one who loves it more than is appropriate. I mentioned it in conversation a couple of days ago and thought, “2020 has enough going on to fill up this entire song.” My youngest daughter Abby was hanging out this weekend and we decided to work up an new set of lyrics, excluding the chorus.

I’m including the original lyrics by Billy Joel to help you keep track. Our alternate lyrics are in italics. Listen on your fave streaming service and follow along.

Now, without further ado, enjoy We Didn’t Start the Fire: 2020 Edition.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
Donald Trump, Election Day, Joe Biden, bad debate

South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Minnesota, black lives matter, getting out the vote.

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
Mitch McConnell, Patrick Skinner, Space X mission, deep divisions

North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Indonesia, John Lewis, Canada’s Trudeau

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Van Den Berg, F-Bomb, pay-to-play, Regeneron

Brando, “The King and I” and “The Catcher in the Rye”
Nolan, “No Time To Die,” everybody asking why.

Eisenhower, vaccine, England’s got a new queen
Right-Wing, Left-Wing, ice caps keep on melting

Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
Little Richard, RBG, Chadwick Boseman 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

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Russia’s Putin, Kasparov, Bibi, and Agalarov

Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Streaming church, Deborah Birx, banning Tiktok

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
George Floyd, Mike Cohen, Matt Salvini, Macron

Dien Bien Phu falls, “Rock Around the Clock”
Work done from home, kids around the clock.

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team
Bolton, Packer, everybody’s quarantined

Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Lady Gaga, Weinstein, Waxahatchee, Tolkien

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Whitmer kidnap foiled, cancel culture, more oil

Princess Grace, “Peyton Place,” trouble in the Suez
Saving face, The Good Place, trouble with a Royal

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
TP rush, sanitize, Sarah Cooper, bigger lies

Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, “Bridge on the River Kwai”
Kushner, Trump’s trial, dam on the River Nile

Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball
Beirut, statues fall, season-shortened baseball

Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide
Bushfires, stay inside, Chinese Uyghurs genocide

Buddy Holly, “Ben Hur”, space monkey, Mafia
Coney Barrett, Netflix, GOP, Pelosi

Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
Taylor made Folklore, mail-in ballots are go

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
YouTube, Megan Thee, 25th, and gluten-free

Chubby Checker, “Psycho”, Belgians in the Congo
Kobe Bryant, low-flow, virus 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”
Conaways, Falwell, governmental breakdown

Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
Broadway, Hamilton, lady bug invasion

“Lawrence of Arabia”, British Beatlemania
Rioting and anarchy, protest White Supremacy

Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Megan, Harry, Tampa beats the Yankees

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
Louisville, who is next, British politicians Brex

JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say
Fly-in-hair Mike Pence, what happened to common sense?

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
PPEs, no vaccine, dying from COVID-19 

Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Men shot, tech stocks, respirate, indie rock

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Wildfire, losing wine, no Hydroxychloroquine

Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Trouble brewing in Iran, endorsed by the Taliban

“Wheel of Fortune”, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Social distance, taking sides, rash of farmer suicides

Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Massive debt, homeless vets, jobs, masks, hedge your bets

Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law
Refugees kept from our shores, Portland’s under martial law

Rock and roller cola wars, i can’t take it anymore
People threaten civil war, can we take it anymore?

Repeat chorus to end

Original lyrics copyright Billy Joel. Alternate lyrics copyright Abigail Duren and Marty Duren.
fides quaerens intellectum

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Hi, I'm Marty Duren

I’m Marty Duren, a freelance writer, content creator, podcaster, and publisher in Nashville, TN. I guess that makes me an entrepreneur-of-all-trades. Formerly a social media strategist at a larger publisher, comms director at a religious nonprofit, and a pastor, Marty Duren Freelance Writing is the new business iteration of a decade-long side-hustle.

I host the Uncommontary Podcast which publishes weekly. Guests range from academics to authors to theologians to activists on subjects related to history, current events, and the impact of evangelicalism on American life. My voice is deep-fried giving rise to being labeled “a country Batman.” Find Uncommontary in your favorite podcast app.

Missional Press publishes books by Christian writers with the goal of impacting people with the good news of Jesus. 

I’m a longtime blogger at Kingdom in the Midst, where, over the course of many years, I’ve written a lot of words.

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