Monday, 26 July 2010

In third Place ~ Billy Joel in General but Especially ~ We Didn't Start the Fire and Goodnight Saigon

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray

South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio



Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television

North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe



Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom

Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"



Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen

Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye



CHORUS

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



Josef Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev

Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc



Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron

Dien Bien Phu and "Rock Around the Clock"



Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team

Davy Crockett, "Peter Pan", Elvis Presley, Disneyland



Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev

Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez



CHORUS



Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac

Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"



Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball

Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide



Buddy Holly, "Ben-Hur", space monkey, Mafia

hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no go



U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy

Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo



CHORUS



Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"

Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion



"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania

Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson



Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex

JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say



CHORUS



Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon, back again

Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline

Ayatollolah's 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 anymore



CHORUS



We didn't start the fire

But when we are gone

Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...



Goodnight Saigon



We met as soul matesOn parris islandWe left as inmatesFrom an asylumAnd we were sharpAs sharp as knivesAnd we were so gung hoTo lay down our livesWe came in spasticLike tameless horsesWe left in plasticAs numbered corpsesAnd we learned fastTo travel lightOur arms were heavyBut our bellies were tightWe had no home frontWe had no soft soapThey sent us playboyThey gave us bob hopeWe dug in deepAnd shot on sightAnd prayed to jesus christWith all our mightWe had no camerasTo shoot the landscapeWe passed the hash pipeAnd played our doors tapesAnd it was darkSo dark at nightAnd we held on to each otherLike brother to brotherWe promised our mothers we'd writeAnd we would all go down togetherWe said we'd all go down togetherYes we would all go down togetherRemember charlieRemember bakerThey left their childhoodOn every acreAnd who was wrong? And who was right? It didn't matter in the thick of the fightWe held the dayIn the palmOf our handThey ruled the nightAnd the nightSeemed to last as long as six weeksOn parris islandWe held the coastlineThey held the highlandsAnd they were sharpAs sharp as knivesThey heard the hum of our motorsThey counted the rotorsAnd waited for us to arriveAnd we would all go down togetherWe said we'd all go down togetherYes we would all go down together



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