Song meaning of We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel

Ah yes, "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel, the ultimate history lesson in song form. Let's break it down. In the first verse, we've got Harry Truman and Doris Day, which I'm assuming is some kind of weird political Hollywood romance. And who can forget that epic battle between North and South Korea, all while Marilyn Monroe was being her iconic self and the Rosenbergs were getting fried. But hey, Sugar Ray was knockin' em out in the boxing ring, so that's cool.

Moving onto the second verse, we've got the classic combo of Joseph Stalin and Liberace (they were totally BFFs, right?) and a bunch of other big names from the time, like Einstein and James Dean, who I'm sure spent many late nights pondering the meaning of life together. Elvis Presley and Disneyland also make appearances, because who doesn't love a good mid-century Americana moment?

Things start to get a bit darker in verse three with mentions of Little Rock and the tragic thalidomide scandal. The mention of the Mafia amidst all the chaos just seems a little too on the nose, doesn't it? And then we've got JFK getting assassinated, which just puts things into a whole new level of grimness.

But don't worry, things get even more insane in verse four, with Hemingway, Eichmann, and Dylan all hanging out together in Berlin. And let's not forget the British Beatlemania and the Bay of Pigs invasion- two things that go together like peanut butter and jelly, right? We round out with some classic '80s references like the Moonshot and punk rock.

And the fifth and final verse just brings everything into the present day, with mentions of Bernie Goetz, AIDS, and the rock and roller cola wars (which had some pretty epic battle scenes, I hear). The song ends on a bit of a somber note, with the acknowledgement that we may not have started the fire, but it's still burning on and on and on. So, let's all just grab some s'mores and enjoy the show, shall we?