Fall Out Boy is continuing a legacy from the iconic Billy Joel with the debut of their modern take on a song we all know and have been changed by, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Joel’s tune was a quick lyrical list of major newsworthy events beginning in the decade he was born and running through 1989.
The 2023 take on the one-of-a-kind song follows the style of the song’s first run with updated news headlines. Basically, they looked closely at the years between Joel’s rendition and the current era, to highlight the idea that the world may still feel like it’s on fire, and things might overwhelm us more often than they calm us, but that it’s not a fire we’ve started.
The message behind Joel’s song was simple: if we want to make the world a better place, there’s one easy thing we could do every day:
“No matter how much you try, the world is going to be a mess. All you can do is the best you can and maybe make the world immediately around you a better place.”
All we can do is the best we can, and if we give it our best, we can start to put that fire out, one ember at a time. Of course, the song isn’t all bad — there are some events Fall Out Boy’s retelling highlights that are right out of our pop culture daydreams. Everything from the greats like Twilight, Venus and Serena, Pokemon, and Iron Man made the cut, and we were quickly reminded of how iconic of a time we truly exist in.
There are a handful of memes or social media posts that will highlight on a daily basis how lucky we are to be alive at a time when a specific celebrity, film, tv series, or song exists. The flip side of the coin in “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a call to look at the bright side whenever possible. Yes, we were always in the middle row, middle seat for each midnight showing of a new Twilight film, and we’ve still got binders of Pokémon cards tucked safely away in our pop culture shelves, and we do feel blessed to experience it all.
Our favorite hoodies don logos of our most beloved superheroes, and we’ve watched some incredible moments in sports and entertainment as a whole, moments that pave the way for others to step into roles that might never have existed for them otherwise.
Of course, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” also highlights profound losses and changes in the societal realm we all exist in, and it really puts things in perspective, hearing them all sing aloud. Sometimes the heartache we felt as a nation feels lifetimes away, but things like the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks happened within our lifetime; these events changed the trajectory of our world in ways we’re still figuring out.
Things like Columbine and Sandy Hook are mentioned alongside names like George Floyd and Tamir Rice, and it goes without saying that no words can help heal the hurt left by the moments that aren’t at the root of our most precious memories. The ones that hurt more than they make sense but still happened and have shaped us as a society. The ones we must use the fire for in a way that allows us to spark necessary change.
Fall Out Boy shared the following message alongside their release of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”:
“I thought about this song a lot when I was younger. All these important people and events- some that disappeared into the sands of time- others that changed the world forever. So much has happened in the span of the last 34 years- we felt like a little system update might be fun. Hope you like our take on it…”
A system update indeed, and while some Fall Out Boy fans are deep in their feels about the state of the world over the last 34 years (that doesn’t make us feel old at all), others are loving that we’ve got a moment in time to reflect upon the state of things now, in the good and the not so.
May we remember to help put out the fire when we can and let it ignite us for good when we can’t.