1949 Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe Dimaggio,
1950 Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe,
1951 Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom,
Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye
1952 Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new Queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana good-bye .
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
1953 Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist bloc,
1954 Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Tosconini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, Rock Around the Clock,
1955 Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
1956 Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev,
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez.
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
1957 Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge on the River Kwai,
1958 Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather homicide, Children of Thalidomide,
1959 Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia,
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no go,
1960 U-2, Syngman Rhee, Payola, and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo.
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
1961 Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion,
1962 Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
1963 Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK blown away, What else do I have to say?
CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
1964
to
1989 Birth control, Ho Chi-Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate,Punk Rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airlines
Ayatollahs in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, Heavy metal, Suicide,
Foreign debts, Homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz,
Hypodermics on the shore, China's Under Martial Law,
Rock and Roller Cola Wars, I can't take it any more!
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on and on and on and on.....
CHORUS
