Millennial reboot of Billy Joel’s classic, 1 year later

“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”

Billy Joel may not have known it when he wrote “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” but in documenting his generation’s struggle with thing after thing happening to them intermingled with the song’s  chorus, he was telling the story of struggle and perseverance through constant uncertainty and unrelenting change. Truthfully, most people under 40 today simply fail to acknowledge that the baby boomer generation experienced and responded to a myriad of global and social unrest that largely set the foundation for what millennials and Gen Zers today demand as part of their First Amendment rights. 

We are mere days from the one-year anniversary of Fallout Boy’s 2023 update, co-written by the band’s bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz and Billy Joel. The song was met with a lot of mixed reviews and general displeasure with remaking a classically polarizing song. I think that what the critics forget is that music and art become cemented in history when people see themselves and their story in it, not when some critic says it’s good for this or that reason. 

The Fallout Boy version is the millennials’ anthem, telling the story of how incredibly diverse and complex the landscape of change has become. No longer just about people or political events that made a mark on humanity from an American’s point of view, the 2023 version also highlights the vastness of important moments that without the onset of technological innovation and the internet we would never be able to envision. Cambridge Analytica. Deepfakes. MySpace. QAnon. Self-driving electric cars. YouTube killed MTV. Y2K. 

The 2023 version also contemplates that the push for social change has shifted from global tension toward a more vocal demand for change domestically over the past few generations. Although if the song were released a year later, perhaps the lyrics would be a little different.

“We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

But when we are gone, it will still go on”

Aside from the details of historical events, the chorus largely remains unchanged. A testament perhaps to Joel’s foresight (or luck) in acknowledging that things simultaneously change and, yet, stay the same. 

Fallout Boy has yet to release an official music video for the 2023 version of the song. To be honest, I’m not sure American millennials are in any way prepared to visually relive their last 40 years. Music has always been a channel for moving people to the point of activism but it also serves an important role in helping one even temporarily forget about some of their most difficult or impactful days.

I hear Pete Wentz and Billy Joel had a hard time finding something to rhyme with COVID and that was why the song omitted such a ubiquitous historical moment. Well, thanks to Chris Stallings — much-loved science teacher at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo — Wentz and Joel can now make a reprise of the song and add: “COVID virus, Miley Cyrus.” You’re welcome. 

Annie Tsai is chief operating officer at Interact (tryinteract.com), early stage investor and advisor with The House Fund (thehouse.fund), and a member of the San Mateo County Housing and Community Development Committee. Find Annie on Twitter @meannie.