Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Parody of "We Didn't Start the Fire"



The middle kid came home from school two days ago and mentioned that one of her teachers played Billy Joel's, "We Didn't Start the Fire" in her history class. She was given the lyrics and mentioned that she didn't even understand what half of those historical mentions meant.

So I slapped "We Didn't Start the Fire" in the CD player and we talked about some of the history that was covered in there. Did I mention that Billy Joel is one of my favorites?

Yesterday morning, she got up out of bed and said, "Mom, I can't get those lyrics out of my head!"

Billy Joel did a great thing for kids all over when he wrote that little ditty of a song.

So today, when I spied this over at Meryl's Blog, I just had to take a look:

We Didn't Start the Fire (amusing video with lyrics and original song)

and

Here Comes Another Bubble (amusing parody).

And like I told my daughter, Marlee Matlin can be seen in the original:

Billy Joel--We Didn't Start the Fire.

13 comments:

Kikilia said...

I love this song. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.

Amazing how he managed to get so much history into 4 minutes.

It reminds me of an updated version of "Bye Bye Miss American Pie".

Phyllis Sommer said...

i love that song too. my dad was a middle school social studies teacher and he used the song to teach all that history. i think it's a fun lesson -- to decipher each phrase and tell the whole story.

and now it's in my head!

Sam said...

Gosh, I had forgotten that song!! It was one of my favourites in my mid-teens - it has such strong lyrics that were easy to follow once I'd learnt them!

"we didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning"

Love it still!

Unknown said...

Love Billy Joel!!! I taught that song in my first lesson with Italian students...go figure! Smack, Jodi

Unknown said...

I love many of Billy Joel's songs. He got a great voice.

THanks for sharing.

Rebekah said...

Hi. I stumbled across your site from 5 minutes for mom. I have a 14 yr son that has moderate loss of hearing in both ears. Not enough to be considered deaf, but enough to make things difficult for him. He was diagnosed in kindergarten.

We attempted corrective surgery but it didn't work. He wears hearing aids in class but can hear enough that he doesn't wear them all the time.

He does have social side affects from the loss due to missing out on overhearing a lot, and he does have some personality issues due to the loss.

It has been a struggle for me trying to learn how to help him and understand why he does things the way he does them. I have read several books on the subj trying to educate myself.

I would love to hear your story and the cause of your loss. Josh's loss is from fixed foot plates and has been stable over the past 8 years

Loudest Mom said...

The parody was hysterical. As a victim of the last Tech crash (I *was* an Acct Exec for a high tech ad agency), I thought it was very funny :) I blame my two additional kids on my getting laid off- needed job security-LOL.

I also loved the original song :)

David said...

I just posted
on my blog about Working the musical at Dominican University. It was signed! It was really fun and well done. I thought you might be interested - tomorrow is the last day.

1A said...

I haven't seen the original video in YEARS, and I didn't know Marlee Matlin was in it. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Dawn Wilson said...

AAAHHHH!!! I LOVE!!! that song!! It is definitely one of my favorites. Did you ever see the music video? I loved the way it was done.

The comic BABY BLUES also did a parody of this song: "We Didn't Start Out Tired." MAD Magazine once parodied a bunch of his songs and this one was among them. Also, there's a link somewhere where you can find the lyrics on one side and the historical reference on the other side.

This song has been in my head an awful lot lately.

Karen Putz said...

Dawn-- oh yeah, I loved that Baby Blues one!

Anonymous said...

i had a teacher senior year of highschool play that song. it's a great one.

Anonymous said...

i was watching pop up video yesterday and this video was on there. i was shocked to see marlee matlin. i had never seen her looking so young.
it's a great song that has a great history.