We Didn't Start The Fire

'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...