Fans are offering mixed reviews of pop-punk band Fall Out Boy’s new cover of Billy Joel’s song “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” which dropped last Wednesday.
Originally released in September 1989, Joel’s song offers a chronological crash course of notable historical events between the years 1949 and 1989, from the inauguration of Harry Truman to the “Rock and Roller Cola Wars.” The iconic song was a hit and for younger generations has served as a fun educational piece that remembers and preserves history.
Although the original piece has a whimsical touch, Joel makes note of serious topics throughout the song, including issues such as the deaths of politicians, terrorism and conversations about racial injustice. His chorus breaks away from the montage of historical events to explain how his generation did not “start the fire” of outrageous world events, but that events such as these have been occurring throughout all world history. And despite attempts to achieve peace, the drama, tragedy and warfare will continue to occur.
He sings: “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 tried to fight it.”
Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy’s new rendition of the song makes some notable changes, the most obvious being that all the events listed in the song are from recent years: 1989 to 2023. In a tweet describing and advertising the song, the band called it a “little system update” since the original was released in 1989.
The “system update” also approached the song with a new format, although it still echoes the original tune. Fall Out Boy placed historical events in a seemingly random, nonchronological order, including references to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, notable school shootings (Sandy Hook, Columbine) and events to remember from the Black Lives Matter movement (Rodney King, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, George Floyd). However, these references are intermingled with pop-culture moments, such as the creation of Myspace, SpongeBob and Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards.
This left fans a bit confused, with some expressing frustration with the band. One Twitter user said: “It is just kind of saying nouns that rhymed and happened.” Other fans who still enjoyed the song, despite its poor chronology, are praising Fall Out Boy for creating a new tune. However, many listeners note how the storytelling element present in the original song is missing from this new one, as it does not allow listeners to understand the cause-effect relationship of events throughout history.
But what if storytelling is not the purpose of the song?
Admittedly, “it’s just a fun, goofy thing,” explained Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz in an interview with Zane Lowe. The goal never was to create an educational chronology of history throughout recent world history; It was for entertainment.
However, there is one notable difference the band has yet to publicly explain: They changed the chorus. Slightly different from the original, the new chorus reads, “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.”
While Joel used past tense at the end of his chorus — “we tried to fight it” — Fall Out Boy uses present tense: “We’re trying to fight it.”
This sentiment carries with it a hope for listeners that our efforts to bring about change in the world amid the insane news headlines published every day are contributing to the fight for a better world. We are not giving up, nor are we allowing the news to overtake us.
And this, I think, might be one way to interpret Fall Out Boy’s disjointed telling of history.
“Living in a world of constant social media pings … these events can become jumbled and overwhelming.”
Living in a world of constant social media pings, where the world’s chaotic new updates are published constantly and available at the push of a button, these events can become jumbled and overwhelming.
This, of course, is compounded by the increasingly partisan bias of every news outlet. Depending on where you read or watch your news, you may be learning something completely different from your peers. Misinformation on social media — which often gets treated as “news” — exacerbates this struggle to learn what’s going on.
And to make things worse, students today face an educational system in which the teaching of some parts of history is challenged.
For example, in 2022 the American Library Association “documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources.” Additionally and notably, recent pushback against the AP African American Studies course framework for high school students caught the attention of scholars and teachers alike.
When students do not have the freedom to learn, their understanding of history can become muddled and confusing. How do we engage in present news events if we have not learned what brought us here?
While Fall Out Boy’s song is admittedly meant to be silly and goofy, its message might serve to ground us as we reflect on history over the past 34 years. If we want to fight against the crazed, outrageous chaos that has been happening “since the world’s been turning,” we must first remember it and learn from it.
Then, although there will inevitably be more overwhelming news to be reported and published for the rest of history, our generation’s fight for change might one day be a positive verse in future renditions of Billy Joel’s iconic song.
Mallory Challis
Mallory Challis is a recent graduate of Wingate University and will begin studies at Wake Forest University School of Divinity this fall. She is a former BNG Clemons Fellow. This summer she’s serving an internship at Providence Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.