This is the first post of what will be a pretty long and (I think) pretty fun blog series. The series will be about the lyrics to the song We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel.
For each post in the series I will take a section of the lyrics and explain why each phrase is significant enough to be mentioned. Here's the catch, I will not do ANY research on the items mentioned in the song. I will just write what (I think) I know about each item and be relatively specific. And if I have no idea, I will just have to take my best guess. Sound like fun?
And hey kids, don't use this information for your 11th grade history reports. I may have no clue what I am talking about.
Oh and before I begin, let me explain what I think the song is about. I think the song is about times changing rapidly in the face of a world in conflict. The lyrics cover the time from just after World War II (at the beginning of the Cold War) through the late 1980s, which as it turned out was almost at the end of the Cold War.
Harry Truman - He was the President of the United States after World War II ended. He was preceded in office by Franklin Roosevelt and followed by Dwight Eisenhower.
Doris Day - Doris was an actress. She was the beauty of her day in the early 1950s. She was quite the pin-up girl.
Red China - This is a reference to the communist take over of China, led by Mao Tse Tung. I tried to write about how Tung took control and brought communism to China, but I couldn't even think of a reasonable guess.
Johnnie Ray - Johnnie is listed in reference to the 1950s civil rights movement. He was killed during a protest in Birmingham shortly before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the march across the bridge that leads into Birmingham.
South Pacific - This was a popular musical on Broadway in the late 1950s.
Walter Winchell - He was the newscaster who did the first live report from an active war zone (the Korean peninsula) in 1956.
Joe DiMaggio - Joe was a great baseball player. He played for the Yankees and dated Marilyn Monroe.
Now I'm going to click Publish Post, then look up who the heck Walter Winchell is (I keep thinking maybe he has something to do with a consumer product.) And feel free to comment away with corrections.
2 comments:
Pretty good, Steve! Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married. South Pacific was interesting because the big conflict was that the male lead had been married to and had kids with a Polynesian woman. This schocked the female lead. Interacial dating was very controversial. When I was in the play in 8th grade, I totally did not get it. Mom had to explain it to me.
Thanks for the additional info Stephanie. When I wrote about South Pacific, I initially wasn't go to write something about the ocean, but I actually thought about you being in that play in the early 80s, so I went the Broadway direction - which I think is accurate. I didn't realize the race aspect of South Pacific until I looked it up on Wikipedia after posting. Good call!
I was actually pretty close on Wichell. I should have mentioned DiMaggio's hit streak.
Johnnie Ray was a singer, not a civil rights activist. Jimmie Lee Jackson was the individual I was thinking of - and I didn't get it quite right about him either.
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