#915. Lineage of Song “We Didn’t Start the Fire”

Billy Joel

Fall Out Boy

My head cannon says we eventually got “Turn the Lights Back On” because the Fall Out Boy follow-up to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” happened.

Billy Joel was an icon from the ‘70s to the ‘90s, an incredible run of music some of us consider on par with what the Beatles collectively produced in the ‘60s. When he started dabbling in classical music, it seemed he’d found a new purpose in life, and he released an album of original compositions, but then realized the classical world didn’t clamor for him the way the pop world did, and he went radio silent except for regular touring (plus a song here or two) for decades.

Broadway did one of its compilation musicals around his work. Billy Joel always resisted writing an autobiography or memoir, even though he led a fascinating and very public life, where he was actually a boxer and member of a band before he broke out as a solo artist, and just the actual “piano man” origins chronicled in the song that helped define him.

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” was a song that went beyond what pop music usually encompasses. It’s a list of defining moments and personalities drawn from his lifetime to that point, and runs contrary to the usual pessimistic view that history always seems to trend in a negative direction. I remember it being featured in one of my classes in middle school as a teaching tool. 

After he walked away in 1994, people had weird takes on his legacy, saying the deliberate walkout “so early” diminished his legacy. Most artists would kill for just a handful of what Billy Joel accomplished in song. He put together a mainstream run that’s virtually unparalleled, unbroken from his breakthrough to River of Dreams.

And eventually someone paid tribute to him and helped continue that legacy. This just doesn’t happen, folks. (Ace of Base did an obscure sequel to Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia,” though. It’s part of their criminally underrated Cruel Summer album. Very close but not quite.)

And then we got Billy Joel’s “Turn the Lights Back On,” his contribution to the late career statement song so many artists since Johnny Cash dropped “Hurt” have pursued. The song is great, the video is phenomenal.