'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, nasser 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 sex

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...


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