# Has anyone ever rewritten or continued "We Didn't Start The Fire"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 4, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485 "2008-10-04T22:18:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/1 "2008-10-04T22:18:35Z")
I love Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” - in fact, I regularly (but jokingly) point out the historic importance of a person or a event by adding that it was mentioned in the song. The single, however, dates back to 1989, and lots of events worth singing about have happened since then. Does anybody know of any artists, possibly Billy Joel himself, who produced a new version of the song by adding more stanzas for the last 20 something years?
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### Author:  [@Trillionaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trillionaire)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/2 "2008-10-04T22:46:39Z")
[Here](http://mmexandra.tripod.com/yeari/weekxxv.htm) are the winning results of a contest that the Washington Post ran a few years ago, inviting readers to update the lyrics post-1989.
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/3 "2008-10-05T01:25:11Z")
Off the subject, but in a similar vein is [this little ditty](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFfdnFOiXUU) about Bell Labs. Well, neat, and sad, too.
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### Author:  [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2008, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/4 "2008-10-05T05:56:23Z")
Simpsons already did it. Sort of. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlZ\_2QMKaq8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlZ_2QMKaq8)
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### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2008, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/5 "2008-10-05T09:09:24Z")
> [@Trillionaire](#):
>
> [Here](http://mmexandra.tripod.com/yeari/weekxxv.htm) are the winning results of a contest that the Washington Post ran a few years ago, inviting readers to update the lyrics post-1989.
That’s exactly what I was interested in. Thanks! And to the other guys here as well!
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2008, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/6 "2008-10-05T10:24:38Z")
There is obviously no accounting for taste:
\*Although the song ranked #1 in the U.S., and #7 in the UK, Blender magazine ranked “We Didn’t Start the Fire” #41 on its list of the “50 Worst Songs Ever”.[1] “We Didn’t Start the Fire” also appeared in the same spot on VH1’s 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever, a collaboration with Blender in 2004. \*
from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire)
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### Author:  [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2008, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/7 "2008-10-05T14:35:19Z")
Cayuga’s Waiters (an a capella group at Cornell) redo it every year or two to update the happenings and hot spots on the Cornell campus and our rivalry with Harvard. (We Didn’t Go to Harvard) 🙂 Not quite the same, but it makes me smile every time I hear it…I’m right back in college.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_In\_A\_Top\_Hat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_In_A_Top_Hat)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2008, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/8 "2008-10-05T14:43:59Z")
> [@Schnitte](#):
>
> I love Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” - in fact, I regularly (but jokingly) point out the historic importance of a person or a event by adding that it was mentioned in the song. The single, however, dates back to 1989, and lots of events worth singing about have happened since then. Does anybody know of any artists, possibly Billy Joel himself, who produced a new version of the song by adding more stanzas for the last 20 something years?
tangent: And then there’s [“We Didn’t Start the Series”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_9eGjZoYoc), which was an advertisement for the syndicated showing of Star Trek: TNG done in the same style. Did they ever do things like that for DS9 or the other Treks?
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### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/9 "2008-10-05T14:56:41Z")
Jibjab did their own version last [year](http://www.jibjab.com/originals/in_2007)
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2008, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-rewritten-or-continued-we-didnt-start-the-fire/466485/10 "2008-10-05T15:13:34Z")
I broached this subject in an earlier [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=443139).