The song Billy Joel will always regret writing
From a personal point of view, it’s frustrating that my first exposure to the work of Billy Joel was ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ because, for so many years, it created a lasting negative impression that dissuaded me from ever listening to the rest of his catalogue. It may well be his most famous track, but it’s one that plagued and irritated me for many years until I was able to see the light and discover there was plenty more to appreciate about the work of the ‘Piano Man’.
There are so many fantastic songs in his catalogue that are far more demonstrative of his songwriting brilliance, but his 1989 hit is far from being one of them. It feels comparatively simplistic in its structure, melody, and lyrical content compared to his other work, and even though some have praised its themes of analysing modern world history through a Cold War lens, it is ostensibly, just a list that doesn’t allow Joel to deviate into more engaging ideas.
You might think that Joel would be proud of his most well-known song and the success it brought him, but in many instances, this is often not the case when artists make a track so ubiquitous. Songwriters can often resent the fact that one song has dominated people’s perceptions of them and can frequently feel like their most successful output hangs over their shoulders like a curse.
This is very much the case with Joel’s feelings on ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’, and on many occasions, he has expressed his disappointment in the song and how it has gone down in infamy. Sure, the New Yorker has been outwardly self-critical about many other releases of his, but there’s not quite as much contempt and resentment for the rest of his oeuvre when compared to the ire he holds for this effort.
Supposedly, the song originated from a comment made by Sean Ono Lennon and a friend of his, who claimed that their generation had been overlooked due to the success of bands like The Beatles and that Lennon Sr had had an easy route to success since “everyone knows that nothing happened in the ‘50s”. While Joel was avidly against the notion that this was the case, he was suddenly inspired to begin writing a song in response to this claim.
Working in a stream-of-consciousness style and simply letting the ideas flow onto the page in front of him, Joel decided to work his way through history and analyse every culturally significant movement or moment that had happened since he was born. “I started with Harry Truman,” Joel would later explain, “Because in 1949, the year I was born, Harry Truman was president. From there, it kind of wrote itself.”
Referencing several other world leaders, Hollywood stars, global events and popular music icons, ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ reads like a glossary of terms from an encyclopaedia of the late 20th century, but while its historical outlook may be fascinating for listeners to consider, Joel is far from a fan of the song he wove around the lyrics.
“When you take the melody by itself, it’s terrible,” he revealed in an interview, going as far as to say it was “one of the worst melodies I ever wrote.” Given the brilliance of some of his other lesser-known works, it’s hard to take one listen to ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ and not find yourself in agreement with him.
