'49 harry truman, doris day, red china, johnnie ray South pacific, walter winchell, joe dimaggio '50 joe mccarthy, richard nixon, studebaker, television North korea, south korea, marilyn monroe '51 rosenbergs, h-bomb, sugar ray, panmunjom Brando, "the king and i" and "the catcher in the rye" '52 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 '53 joseph stalin, malenkov, na**er and prokofiev Rockefeller, campanella, communist bloc '54 roy cohn, juan peron, toscanini, dacron Dien bien phu falls, "rock around the clock" '55 einstein, james dean, brooklyn's got a winning team Davy crockett, peter pan, elvis presley, disneyland '56 bardot, budapest, alabama, krushchev Princess grace, "peyton place", trouble in the suez Chorus '57 little rock, pasternak, mickey mantle, kerouac Sputnik, chou en-lai, "bridge on the river kwai" '58 lebanon, charles de gaulle, california baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide '59 buddy holly, "ben hur", space monkey, mafia Hula hoops, castro, edsel is a no-go '60 u-2, syngman rhee, payola and kennedy Chubby checker, "psycho", belgians in the congo Chorus '61 hemingway, eichmann, "stranger in a strange land" Dylan, berlin, bay of pigs invasion '62 "lawrence of arabia", british beatlemania Ole miss, john glenn, liston beats patterson '63 pope paul, malcolm x, british politician s** Jfk, blown away, what else do i have to say Chorus '64 - '89 birth control, ho chi minh, richard nixon back again Moonshot, woodstock, watergate, punk rock Begin, reagan, palestine, terror on the airline Ayatollah'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 shores, 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...