written by Billy Joel

produced by Mick Jones and Billy Joel

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Ah, ​the first appearance of the legendary Piano Man. “Fire” has

always been one of my very favorite BJ tracks, besides which just

being a cool song—no ironic pun intended—I’ve always been drawn

to the sort of unique song that has something fascinating to say or

list, and too proves a challenge to memorize (see also “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer, from 30 years before this one). This song has been referred to as Billy’s collaboration with Encyclopedia Britannica, an appropriate enough example as we did not have the world-wide web in 1989. Billy had always been extremely prolific with a career packed with hits, since the early-mid-’70s. His actual debut, Cold Spring Harbor, was technically released in late ’71, but due to a goof in mastering the record, the songs came out sounding warped, faster and higher in pitch than intended. The album was allowed to slip between the cracks from the mainstream, rendering 1973’s Piano Man Billy’s default “debut.” In 1983, Cold Spring Harbor was remixed and remastered, and the album was released with its intended sound, amidst a shower of hits at the time speckling Joel’s An Innocent Man record, perhaps his most hit-loaded album since The Stranger. The remainder of the ’80s held equal value for Billy, with ’86’s The Bridge, and Storm Front in fall 1989. Storm Front bore the 8th selection here in my list, “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” with a telescoped view of a score of world events starting in Joel’s birthyear of 1949. Each verse covers one year going forward, until the last set of verses which reviews the final 25 years, 1964 to the present day—or, rather, to ’89.

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A note about my musical treatment of this one: part of my method of giving the songs such an effect involves determining the song’s tempo, or BPM (beats per minute). While this may be confusing, I’ve settled on a range of tempo intervals by which to establish the echo part of the treatment. Thus far in The List, I’ve given each song my audio treatment with one echo interval. With what you could call either a slower or faster tempo than the others, I’ve made two versions of “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” with the two different echo intervals, and so I’ll be including two samples for this one. You may be able to discern the distinction in them.

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

music video

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Billy’s official website