We Didn’t Start the Fire gets updated (officially)

[rayshae3]

And I said officially because I don’t count previous amateurish attempts on YouTubes, or memes on Twitter. Neither one-shot parodies by the likes of the Simpsons or Jimmy Fallon for that matter.

It is Fall Out Boy that updates where Joel left off and gets right into the current world affairs in 2023, but unlike the Billy Joel 1989 song events are not in chronological order. Also I cannot believe there is no reference to the most dominant foreign news of the last couple of years (the war in Ukraine). Unless you assume it is a spillover that started with “...Crimean Peninsula…”
This updated version is a non-album single release.

Lyrics:
Captain Planet, Arab Spring, L.A. riots, Rodney King
Deep fakes, earthquakes, Iceland volcano
Oklahoma City bomb, Kurt Cobain, Pokémon
Tiger Woods, MySpace, Monsanto, GMOs
Harry Potter, Twilight, Michael Jackson dies
Nuclear accident, Fukushima, Japan
Crimean Peninsula, Cambridge Analytica
Kim Jong Un, Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man
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're trying to fight it
More war in Afghanistan, Cubs go all the way again
Obama, Spielberg, explosion, Lebanon
Unabomber, Bobbitt, John, bombing Boston Marathon
Balloon Boy, War on Terror, QAnon
Trump gets impeached twice, Polar bears got no ice
Fyre Fest, Black Parade, Michael Phelps, Y2K
Boris Johnson, Brexit, Kanye West and Taylor Swift
Stranger Things, Tiger King, Ever Given, Suez
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're trying to fight it
Sandy Hook, Columbine, Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice
ISIS, LeBron James, Shinzo Abe blown away
Meghan Markle, George Floyd, Burj Khalifa, Metroid
Fermi paradox, Venus and Serena
Oh-oh-oh, Michael Jordan, 23, YouTube killed MTV
SpongeBob, Golden State Killer got caught
Michael Jordan, 45, Woodstock '99
Keaton, Batman, Bush v. Gore, I can't take it anymore
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're trying to fight it
Elon Musk, Kaepernick, Texas failed electric grid
Jeff Bezos, climate change, white rhino goes extinct
Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Tom DeLonge and aliens
Mars rover, Avatar, self-driving electric cars
SSRI's, Prince and The Queen die
World trade, second plane, what else do I have to say?
We didn't start the fire (we didn't start it)
It was always burning since the world's been turning (oh)
We didn't start the fire (we didn't start it)
But when we are gone, it will still go on (oh-yeah)
And on, and on, and on, an on
And on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire (fire)
It was always burning since the world's been turning

[dth1971]

Nice new lyrics, but it doesn't mention COVID-19 in W.D.S.T.F. 2023.

[rayshae3]

Jul 8, 2023 8:07:38 GMT -5 dth1971 said:

Nice new lyrics, but it doesn't mention COVID-19 in W.D.S.T.F. 2023.

COVID omission was definitely a major one.
Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy (who together with Billy Joel is the only person credited on the new version) has stated and I cut and paste here:
“It’s like, that’s all anybody talked… You know what I mean? I don’t know. It felt like there was a couple of things that felt like a little on the nose.”

Elsewhere in a separate email interview last week in the style section of NYTimes he said:
“I think our biggest omission was a Covid reference, and we debated it, but we leave that to the next generation’s update!”

[mrjukebox]

Just heard Fall Out Boy's updated version-It's phenomenal!

[Jessica]

Billy Joel seems ok with it.

[mrjukebox]

Has the updated version of "We Didn't Start The Fire" debuted on the Billboard "Hot 100"?

[rayshae3]

Jul 13, 2023 19:27:45 GMT -5 mrjukebox said:

Has the updated version of "We Didn't Start The Fire" debuted on the Billboard "Hot 100"?

Yes. In the new Hot 100 it debuts at #94. But it also debuts in half dozen other BB charts (most notably at #1 on both Rock Digital Songs Sales and Alternative Digital Songs Sales rankings.)

But I found it more interesting to see Billy Joel’s original 1989 Hot 100 #1 entering in the new Top 50 Hot Rock & Alternative Songs list at #21 (thanks to interest Fall Out Boy version generated which climbs from #44 to #6 in this same chart.) PS. Older songs are eligible to re-chart only if they enter in the top half of this chart.

[rayshae3]

It looks like the song might have fizzled, the new Hot 100 doesn’t have it included in. But it debuts at #37 in the Adult Top 40 in the new chart. Is it a contender in the lower portions of the new AT40/HotAC? We have to wait and see. An update: Billy Joel's old 1989 version is also out of the top 50 Hot Rock & Alternative Song chart.