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 apo...
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