Only 3 People Mentioned in "We Didn't Start the Fire" Are Still Alive

https://www.neatorama.com/2025/12/29/Only-3-People-Mentioned-in-We-Didnt-Start-the-Fire-Are-Still-Alive/

402 points · 71 comments · view on lemmy.world

71 Comments

snappy@lemmy.world · 103 pts · 227d (22 replies)

Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, Bernhard Goetz

RobotToaster@mander.xyz · 21 pts · 227d (4 replies)

If this is a highlander situation my money is definitely on Goetz.

Apeman42@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 227d (2 replies)

And that's when Chubby Checker hits you with The Twist.

atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 227d
pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 227d

They'll never see it coming.

troglodytis@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 227d

There will be only one

samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 227d

Ages 84, 84, and 78, respectively.

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 227d (1 reply)

Bernhard Goetz

First time I heard him called Bernhard...

Yeah, Bernie Goetz

I''ve been thinking about Bernie Goetz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x60V0eayiAY

Doomtree - 38 airweight

Asidonhopo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 224d

3 day old reply but immediately after reading your comment I figured maybe you weren't familiar with the Beastie Boys "Stop That Train" from the Paul's Boutique album. Around 0:55 they can be clearly heard full-naming Mr. Goetz.

https://youtu.be/Dq8rRxIGSnw

Or maybe you're a fan and never realized you had heard him called Bernhardt? Anyways cheers

otp@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 227d (6 replies)

Bob Dylan probably doesn't have long, lol

funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 227d (4 replies)

judging by his recent gigs, he may already be gone

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 227d (3 replies)

By "recent", you mean the last 50 years?

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 227d (2 replies)

yeah, i was in austin the same time he was recently. everyone was goggling about going to see him and were you going to go see him? I was like, for the $400 they're asking i can watch a tape. i saw a mid-80s year old buddy guy a few years back and while as a guitar player it was a really technically interesting concert, he hardly played any songs. he mostly imitated other greats who have died and had been influenced by his style. like, cool you can play like stevie and jimi but i came to hear you dude. buddy was only $20 a pop so it was still a great concert. I was not going to risk that at $400 a pop.

DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 226d (1 reply)

"buddy guy" is not the same as Buddy Guy. If you think capitalization isn't useful, here's an example of where it is.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 226d

you understood well enough

trashcroissant@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 226d

That's wild, I could've sworn he was dead already.

Tudsamfa@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 227d

In order of the FMK game, I assume?

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@piefed.world · 1 pts · 227d

Mysteries on the Holodeck.

Porrny@lemmynsfw.com · -1 pts · 227d (4 replies)

I wonder when all of U2 died, though… hadn’t heard anything about that.
Another for the AI slop pile. Maybe ppl shouldn’t just ask AI a question to create this bullshit articles, eh? If I didn’t have an ad blocker active I would feel cheated by reading articles like that.

theyoyomaster@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 226d (2 replies)

You know it’s not the band U2 in the song, right?

Porrny@lemmynsfw.com · -2 pts · 226d (1 reply)

You know you are wrong on that one, right?

theyoyomaster@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 225d

Bono wasn’t even born yet when the U-2 shoot down incident happened, which is also where it is placed chronologically in the song.

Aqarius@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 226d

Powers died back in '77.

SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 227d (7 replies)

Also Brigitte Bardot is a racist pos. People, especially media, want to gloss over that because she was hot. Same with how Coco Chanel still gets venerated.

tempest@lemmy.ca · 18 pts · 227d (6 replies)

HP Lovecraft racist or rich white woman born in the 30s racist?

SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 227d (1 reply)

Marrying the advisor of Jean-Marie Le Pen ( leader of Front Nationale a far-right French political party) type of racist. Plus she called Marie le Pen (daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen and also a fascist) the Joan of Arc of the 21st century in an interview.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 227d

i mean if she lights the pyre

sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz · 15 pts · 227d (1 reply)

HP Lovecraft racist or rich white woman born in the 30s racist?

That's literally the same racism, when do you think HP Lovecraft was living/writing...?

Also, we gotta stop giving old people passes. They have the ability to change, they just choose to be bigots. My 90+ year old grandma wholeheartedly embraces my trans friends even if she doesn't fully understand how or why "Robert" became "Annalise", and she had never interacted with a trans person in her life before then.

Brigitte Bardot was just a racist, xenophobic bitter POS until the end.

ChairmanMeow@programming.dev · 4 pts · 226d

Lovecraft's racism was born and fuelled out of fear of the unknown. Bardot's racism is more of the common hate-kind.

tatann@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 227d

Uber-racist (and homophobe, anti-feminist, etc...)

She would have been a great asset in the Trump administration

Borknager@lemmynsfw.com · 1 pts · 227d
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givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 227d (1 reply)

The list of suspects narrow...

BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 227d

The long arc of justice will prevail.

vk6flab@lemmy.radio · 32 pts · 227d

The article is light on detail. No actual list of who's in the song.

Here's the full list of 119 references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_references_in_We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire

RobotToaster@mander.xyz · 27 pts · 227d (3 replies)

The song also mentions the Beatles, and I'm sure there's at least one Belgian still in the Congo.

kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 227d

It mentions Beatlemania, which I think we can safely say has died.

And you'd need two Belgians in the Congo.

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 227d (1 reply)

Any troubles in the Suez still?

AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 227d

Has the boat gotten stuck again?

Eyekaytee@aussie.zone · 26 pts · 227d

this might be one of the most mildly interestings things ive ever read

GreenCrunch@piefed.blahaj.zone · 21 pts · 227d (2 replies)

Well... since "we" could be interpreted to include Billy Joel and the listener... that's two more!

logicbomb@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 227d

I think including the listener is stretching it. I think it's pretty straightforward that "we" refers to Billy Joel's generation.

chiliedogg@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 227d

And any living Belgians who were in the Congo before 1960.

HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 20 pts · 227d (7 replies)

I wish the Fall Out Boy update to the song was good.

Postimo@lemmy.zip · 20 pts · 227d (1 reply)

In Bo Burnham fan circles people joked that That Funny Feeling from Inside is the truer generational update to We Didn't Start the Fire 🥲

Aqarius@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 226d

That's... entirely correct. Jesus.

ech@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 227d (1 reply)

At last there's a decent 1985 update:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaAYUZqZvlA

RobotToaster@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 227d

I liked the medieval version https://youtu.be/drDs-Y5DNH8

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 226d (2 replies)

What's your issue with it?

I didn't realize the Fall Out Boy version existed before this comment and streamed it. It sounds fairly good, about what I'd expect from a Fall Out Boy update

wjrii@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 226d

The selection of items seems weaker to me, but for me the main sin is that the original is basically chronological, which makes it more impressive that it's a coherent song at all, if a bit overrated and very boomerific. Fallout Boy one just throws shit in at random to make the lines scan and rhyme, so it's very "meh" even as a follow-up. It feels like they kind of didn't understand that the original was a survey of the time period.

HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 226d

The Fall Out Boy version just blasts out a bunch of random events from the generation it is covering. Joel's version has clearly defined decades/eras and the progression through time.

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 18 pts · 227d (1 reply)

Did any of those 3 people start the fire?

Flickerby@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 226d

Damn it, every time I think I have an original thought...

FardyCakes@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 227d

I mean some of them weren’t alive even when the song came out.

jordanlund@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 227d (3 replies)

Holy shit, Chubby Checker is still alive? Wow!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chubby_Checker

deegeese@sopuli.xyz · 10 pts · 227d (2 replies)

15 years ago he was in the news suing because someone put out a smartphone app named “Chubby Checker” and that’s was not the sort of association he wanted to his name. 😉

hypnicjerk@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 227d (1 reply)

15 years ago... smartphone app...

sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 227d

Holy shit, a Fire Punch meme on Lemmy. (read Fire Punch, everyone)

RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 227d (1 reply)
tourist@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 226d

This was an interesting choice of image for the JFK mention.

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 227d

I know mashups are pretty tired but I always wanted to hear a mashup of "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Prodigy's "Firestarter".

aramis87@fedia.io · 7 pts · 227d

Only three people listed in the song are still alive: Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, and Bernhard Goetz.

nemanin@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 227d (4 replies)

I mean…only like 7 of them were alive in 1994 in the first place.

Rise1547@feddit.org · 2 pts · 227d (3 replies)

Song came out in 1989, you fool

swordgeek@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 227d (2 replies)

You could have made you point just as effectively without adding 'you fool.'

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 227d (1 reply)

But alas, he had to add "you fool", because he's secretly gilbert godfried!

harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 227d

Or Gandalf. Or Vezzini (sp?).

Amuletta@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 227d (1 reply)

The medieval version.

https://youtu.be/drDs-Y5DNH8

thermal_shock@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 227d

New cover by fallout boy

https://youtu.be/2LkVKCWL0U4

Phegan@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 227d
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Dagnet@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 227d

Is this a battle royale or what?

MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk · 1 pts · 227d

4 if you count Ryan.

swordgeek@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 227d

Still say it's Joel's weakest hit, musically speaking.

LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 225d

This Billy Joel song is from his album that marked the beginning of his decline, no longer cranking out masterpieces, and this song has always annoyed the bejeezus out of me.

I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 227d
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