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Piano Man v. We Didn't Start The Fire.

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For years, I have been a "Piano Man" man. That is, I've thought for years that Piano Man is the Worst Song in The History of All Time. Last Saturday however, it was pointed out to me that "We Didn't Start The Fire" is far far more offensive. My question to you is: which song is worse, and why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV41SKFRJVo

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:47 (nineteen years ago)

i remember once, a few new year's eves ago, i had passed out on the floor of wherever i was long before midnight (drinking before 2 will do that to you) and i woke up somewhere in the middle of the night to the sound of GROUP SINGALONG to "piano man" by a bunch of my friend's girlfriend's sister's college student buddies. needless to say, this didn't bode well for the coming year.

― shabba ranks (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:51 (nineteen years ago)

neither of these songs is, however, by any stretch, the worst song ever.

― shabba ranks (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:53 (nineteen years ago)

Oh man that fucking sucks. That may be the worst New Years story ever. Okay not worst song ever=which is worster?

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:53 (nineteen years ago)

a hobson's choice...Piano Man is worse. At least with WDSTF you are getting a cursory flash world history lesson.

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:54 (nineteen years ago)

"We Didn't Start The Fire" is really in the upper echelons of bad for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, because I'm usually a sucker for shitty pop-culture references in songs.

― Sadly, he will be the next Alexis Petridish. (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:54 (nineteen years ago)

Lyrics

We Didn’t Start The Fire
Storm Front Released: 1989
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny 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, England's got a new queen
Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

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

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

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

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

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

Hemingway, Eichman, 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
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

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

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

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

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:56 (nineteen years ago)

Hey somebody find that blog thing or whatever where Billy Joel gets pissed off because everyone always asks him to play "Piano Man". Please?

― got yourself a fish biscuit! (nickalicious), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:57 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/4/27black.html

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

[groan...]

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:00 (nineteen years ago)

That may be the worst New Years story ever.

Not to derail the thread or anything, but I spent New Years Eve 1998 with a bunch of high school students in Georgia who didn't have a single substance stronger than clove cigarettes.

And the answer to this thread is "We Didn't Start The Fire", which is a shitty song for the same reasons that Forrest Gump is a shitty movie.

― James.Cobo (jamescobo), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

i've had far worse new years than that

― shabba ranks (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

the one i spent trying to get the morning after pill for one

― shabba ranks (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah this is easily the worst verse. And that New Years story actually sounds pretty good. We can always make this the WORST NEW YEARS EVER thread AND the Billy Joel worst song thread, provided you talk about BOTH in your posts.

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:02 (nineteen years ago)

Why does he burn through 20 years in the last two verses anyway? Did he just get bored writing the whole thing?

― Sadly, he will be the next Alexis Petridish. (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:05 (nineteen years ago)

Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost
diaspora, holocaust
shifting of tectonic plates
homeless sleeping on the grates
programmed cell death, marigold, baby's breath
Harold Pinter, coastal shelf
think I'm gonna shoot myself
WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

admittedly you have to mispronounce "diaspora" to make the second line fly

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:18 (nineteen years ago)

rofl

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:20 (nineteen years ago)

EXCELLENT

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:22 (nineteen years ago)

didn't we already have a "make up 'We Didn't Start the Fire' verses" thread?

― bernard snow (sixteen sergeants), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:24 (nineteen years ago)

a thom inspired addition:

Santeria, Phnom Penh, Laserdisc, Howard Zinn
Telepathic, Rhinoplastic, Jules et Jim…

Eric Burdon, Paul Revere, Raisin Bran, Goodyear,
Maserati, Manicotti, Red Socks Win…

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 14:35 (nineteen years ago)

This thread made me realize that last night I dreamt I was listening to an entire Billy Joel album. I really don't understand this as I only own one of them and it wasn't that one.

― Bassment Jacks (Bimble...), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 16:51 (nineteen years ago)

I heard "Morning Has Broken" last night and for a second, thought it was "She's Only A Woman".

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

totally time to listen to his Billy Joe's two piece Deep Purple styled band, Attila. Viking Rock from Long Island is on the map!

― Ben Dover (jonbenetsbody), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

haha BILLICIO DEL JOELIO, hooray internet

― got yourself a fish biscuit! (nickalicious), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

"piano man" is better by a mile.

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

WDSTF is kinda fun in its goofiness. "Piano Man" is kinda like a four minute earache.

― Rodney is a group! (R. J. Greene), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 18:24 (nineteen years ago)

They're both better than that "in the middle of the night...I go walkin in my sleep" song that got stuck in everyone's heads at my highschool for the worst week of human life on earth.

― got yourself a fish biscuit! (nickalicious), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

neither is as good as captain jack or the longest time

― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 18:45 (nineteen years ago)

I never liked "We Didn't Start The Fire", so it's "Piano Man" all the way. His best work was in-between though, with "The Stranger" and "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" possibly the two best songs he ever wrote.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 19:08 (nineteen years ago)

piano man by a via dolorosa

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 19:16 (nineteen years ago)

If you're gonna steal from Dylan, far better you should steal "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" outright than to take the vocal approach of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and apply it to a dinky "new-wave" track, with lyrics stolen from a cheat-sheet for your upcoming 6th Grade 20th-century history test. "Piano Man" wins it, easily.

― M. Agony Von Bontee (M. Agony Von Bontee), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 19:23 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

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― ≝ (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:44 (fourteen years ago)

http://theweeklybookscan.blogs.realtor.org/files/2009/06/bkblg_o_branagan_redhotproperty.jpg

― ≝ (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:45 (fourteen years ago)

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― ≝ (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:45 (fourteen years ago)

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― ≝ (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:45 (fourteen years ago)

http://www.inman.com/files/u4473/Killer_Listing_small_version_0.jpg

― ≝ (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:46 (fourteen years ago)

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