We Didn't Start the Fire

We Didn't Start the Fire [Billy Joel]

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, englands got a new queen
Marciano, liberace, santayana goodbye

Chorus
We didnt start the fire
It was always burning
Since the worlds been turning
We didnt start the fire
No we didnt light it
But we tried to fight it

joseph stalin, malenkov, nasser and prokofiev
Rockefeller, campanella, communist bloc

roy cohn, juan peron, toscanini, dacron
Dien bien phu falls, rock around the clock

einstein, james dean, brooklyns got a winning team
Davy crockett, peter pan, elvis presley, disneyland

bardot, budapest, alabama, krushchev
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

u-2, 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
Ayatollahs 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, chinas under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I cant take it anymore

Chorus

We didnt start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

Piano Man

Piano Man [Billy Joel]

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me
Makin' love to his tonic and gin

He says, "Son, can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes."

la la la, di da da
La la, di di da da dum

Chorus:
Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us all feelin' all right

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke and he'll light up your smoke
But there's some place that he'd rather be
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me."
As his smile ran away from his face
"Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"

Oh, la la la, di da da
La la, di da da da dum

Now Paul is a realistic novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he's talkin' with Davy, who's still in the Navy
And probably he will be for life

And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessman slowly gets stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone

Chorus
sing us a song you're the piano man
sing us a song tonight
well we're all in the mood for a melody
and you got us all feeling alright

It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been comin' to see
To forget about their life for a while
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, "Man, what are you doin' here?"

Oh, la la la, di da da
La la, di da da da dum

Chorus:
sing us a song you're the piano man
sing us a song tonight
well we're all in the mood for a melody
and you got us all feeling alright