Monday, June 22, 2009

We Didn't Start the Fire - What I Think - Part 6

This is the sixth post in my blog series about the song We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. I am writing about the significance of each item mentioned in the song. That is, what significance I THINK they have. I am not doing any research or looking anything up, so I could be totally wrong. (And I've been starting to take a little ribbing at just how wrong I have been on some of them. That's OK though, I think I've got today's nailed.)

More information about this blog series can be found in the series' first post.

Roy hn - Hn was the military commander of the South Korean forces battling against Soviet aggression to turn the whole country into a communist state.

Juan Peron - Juan Peron was Evita Peron's husband. Evita was the first femal leader of Chile, makeing Juan the first 'first gentleman' of the country.

Toscanini - Toscanini is a city in Italy. It is mentioned in the song here because the city was the place where Italy's president was assasinated.

dacron - Dacron is the Vietnamese word for 'chemical weapon."

Dien Bien Phu falls - Phu was the freely elected leader of Cambodia who fell to communist backed Khmer Rouge.

"Rock Around the Clock" - This was the first hit song of the rock and roll era. It was sung by Bill Haley and the Comets.

6 comments:

Rocki said...

Jaun and Evita say "Don't Cry for me Argentina"...not Chile.

Rocki said...

And Jaun was president and she was the first lady.

Shelley said...

I'm not going to correct any of your guesses. I just want to let you know that as a history teacher, I find your guesses funny and although many of them are wrong, you write with such confidence that if I didn't know better, I would believe you! So far, your guess at dacron cracks me up the most! Please promise me when you are done that you will look up the answers. I think you will get a kick out of some of your guesses.

Professor Prenkert said...

I wonder if you'll be willing to take a Mulligan on the first one. The name is "Roy Cohn," not "Roy Hn," so you're in the wrong continent.

Professor Prenkert said...

Oh, and, Toscanini is a person (conductor again).

I'm with Shelley that Dacron is as entertaining a guess as any on here! If you're going to guess, I'm with you that it's better to do so boldly.

(For a hint on Dacron . . . ask my mom, her occupation would demand knowledge.)

Steve Gall said...

Thanks for all the comments everyone. Rocki, I smacked my forehead when I read the song lyric you posted. I should have had that. I have not seen the Madonna movie. However, I have heard that song lots of times. Putting Chile is especially disappointing because I had no idea Evita's husband's name was Juan and I wasn't totally sure Evita's last name was Peron. So, the whole thing was a bit of guess - a pretty good one in this case. And thanks for the first lady info.

Shelley, I think you hit the point of the series. To people who KNOW about a certain item, my wrong guesses will hopefully be humorous. And I guess for people who don't know, well they can just think I'm really smart I guess because I suppose I know enough about history to make it sound like I know what I'm talking about, even if I don't.

Jamie, Thanks for the lyric error tip. It is tough because I am trying really hard to NOT do any research for the posts. I thought "Roy Hn" looked a little funny, but I hated to try to look it up for fear that I would find out who he was. Hopefully the rest of the lyrics I have will be correct. Maybe I will search for the lyrics again, with "Roy Cohn" in the search string to weed out any that have that error - and perhaps others that are forthcoming.

For "Dacron" the lyrics I had did not have a capital for this word, unlike most others. So, I tried to think of a common noun and thought it maybe sounded a little Asian. Then I tried to think of an Asian common noun that might make sense being in the song, and came up with the chemical weapon guess. With Jamie's clue, I would now say it is something similar to nylon.