MINNEAPOLIS — Billy Joel first encapsulated the tumultuous nature of the 20th century in his song "We Didn't Start the Fire" in 1989. The nearly five-minute hit recaps more than 100 major events that happened around the globe between 1949, the year Joel was born, and the year the song was released.
While there's been no shortage of cultural, political and economic headlines to inspire a new rendition of the song, it took until 2023 for a band to tackle the timeline-oriented task.
On June 28, Fall Out Boy released its updated version of "We Didn't Start the Fire." The song, which is approaching half a million views on YouTube as of Thursday morning, picks up where Joel's original left off with rhyming references to a myriad of people, places and incidents from 1989 to 2023.
Starting with "Captain Planet, Arab Spring, L.A. riots, Rodney King
Deep fakes, earthquakes, Iceland volcano," the song goes on to reference Taylor Swift, Harry Potter, the war in Afghanistan, Fyre Fest, President Trump's impeachment and Tiger King, to name a few.
Two major moments with Minnesota ties made it into the song: the 2020 murder of George Floyd and Prince's death in 2016.
"Meghan Markle, George Floyd, Burj Khalifa, Metroid, Fermi paradox, Venus and Serena," frontman Patrick Stump sings in the third verse.
The final verse ends with "SSRIs, Prince and The Queen die, World Trade, second plane, What else do I have to say?"
As with anything these days, the online reaction has been mixed.
Chief among the issues taken with the remake is the topics referenced in the song aren't in chronological order, unlike a majority of the lyrics in Joel's original.
That, a few of the rhymings are a stretch, not every reference neatly falls in the 1989-2023 timeline (Metroid was originally released in 1986), and the song makes no mention of arguably one of the decade-defining periods of the 21st Century: The COVID-19 pandemic.
But the song still has its fans.
Some praised the band behind hits like "Sugar, We're Going Down" and "Thnks fr th Mmrs," like Sean Kelly, who wrote on Twitter, "did not expect a @falloutboy remake of We Didn’t Start the Fire this year... But I approve. Brought back some nostalgia vibes for sure."
Joel, who is headed to Minneapolis in November with Stevie Nicks, hasn't made any comment on his Twitter or Instagram pages about the updates to his song.
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