Only Five People Remain Alive In This Billy Joel Hit
May 14, 2019 5:10AM CDT
Billy Joel namechecks 50 people in his 1989 classic, “We Didn’t Start The Fire”. Unfortunately, only five remain alive today.
On Monday, Doris Day, the second person mentioned in the song’s opening lyrics, after former President Harry Truman, passed away at the age of 97.
Queen Elizabeth II, Brigitte Bardot, Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, and Bernard Goetz are the only ones still counted among the living.
Speaking of the hit track, the Piano Man jokes in the book In Their Own Words: Songwriters Talk About the Creative Process, “It’s one of the worst melodies I’ve ever written. I like the music though.”
Which other songs give a history lesson?
