Friday, June 5, 2009

Billy Joel vs. R.E.M.

Awhile ago, a friend of mind sent me, via a Facebook message, the "assignment" of comparing and contrasting Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and R.E.M.'s "It's the End of World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)." This friend is someone I've known since about sixth grade, and we often go back and forth about music and pop culture. Anyway, this is my extemely off-the-cuff reply to his challenge. Thought you might find it fun:

Billy Joel's “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a litany of baby boomer-era cultural touchstones, and in the chorus Billy basically, in typical curmudgeonly Billy Joel style, says, "look, if you're pissed off about how f***ed up things are now, don't look at us (i.e. the boomers), it was already f***ed up when we got here, but we've been trying to make it better, so there!--and you know what, it'll probably continue to be f***ed up after we're dead." Billy Joel is the official apologist of the Baby Boomer generation.

REM's "It's the End of the World..." has the same rapid-fire vocal delivery as "...Fire", but with lyrics considerably more obtuse and stream-of-consciousness (gee, real shocker that Stipe would be obtuse and stream of conscious, eh). In the chorus, REM (befitting their age--tale end of Baby Boom generation and pretty close to Gen X) go for full-on irony with "the world's falling apart, but we're having a blast." This seems a good commentary on the Reagan-era, where everyone seemed to be basking in materialistic yuppiedom (except for bohemian hipsters like REM, who were casting a critical eye on the proceedings).Stylistically, of course, both songs are pretty darned similar--machine gun verses and choruses that summed up what the verses were getting at. However, Billy's song is smoothed out and shiny, Phil Ramone- produced MOR, while REM is clanking, slightly spastic/slightly punky alternapop college boy music.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry. Joel's song is not an apologia for baby boomers. It's an Andy Warhol musical. And it's very clever.

Mark said...

Ouch, I think I ticked off a Billy Joel fan. I never thought of the song as an "Andy Warhol musical," but that is a good description. Thanks for the input.

By the way, I like most of Billy's music through "The Nylon Curtain," but after that it gets pretty spotty.

Anonymous said...

Isn't it odd that 2 years later Joel releases a song that is basically ripping off REM's artistic idea of pounding out thoughts and observations yet he never credits that band for any artistic influence? Or does he think he was the artistic genious behind it??

Anonymous said...

Since 98.6% of Billy Joel's songs are rip-offs of someone else's original work, how in the hell can anyone think Fire isn't a rip off of End of the World. Effing Piano Man is a rip off of Mr. Bo Jangles by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Joel is a total fraud and telegraphs it if you pay attention. He changes his voice to sound like the artist he's ripping off. New York State of Mind - Georgia by Ray Charles. Joel even ripped of John Denver for God's sake.