Yesterday's "Voice of the People" section in the New York Daily News featured this timely letter from Cynthia Ryan of Brooklyn, NY:
"Just wondering if there was a way to persuade Billy Joel to write a sequel to 'We Didn't Start the Fire.' A lot has happened since it was recorded."
Although I couldn't get through reading this letter aloud to the rest of the staff at the lunch table yesterday without breaking up into that embarassing hysterical laughter where you think you are going to start crying or worse: the truth of the statement is undeniable.
A lot has happened since 1989, when "WDSTF (part one)" reached the #1 spots simultaneously on the Billboard album and singles charts late that year. Desert Storm, grunge rock, Bill Clinton, the Internet, the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Rwandan genocide, Red Bull, Enron, W, terrorism, electroclash, WMD, Mountain Dew Code Red and countless other head-spinning events, persons and soft drinks. How are we to make sense of it all? Where can we find the perspective we desperately need in this uncertain age, as time marches on and history keeps being made every day?
The Voice of the People knows. And The Voice of the People has spoken. We all know who it is who can sort this out for us.
Billy Joel, you are our only hope.
(Thanks to Liz for hooking me up with Schlock Rock's version of the original "We Didn't Start the Fire" she dug out the the JM In the AM Archives.)
I think Megan should write Part 2 and sing it at next year's Hoof and Mouth.
Posted by: amanda | August 18, 2005 at 12:23 PM
If Jon Benet doesn't make the cut, I'll kill myself!
Posted by: Natalie Holloway | August 18, 2005 at 12:39 PM
He hasn't written anything as biting and poignant since "Tear This Castle Down."
it's frustrating.
Posted by: mattk | August 18, 2005 at 03:50 PM
I always have thought that Mr. Joel should update the song every once-in-a-while, maybe every 5 years or so. Good idea.
Posted by: David Wright | September 08, 2005 at 02:30 PM