We Didnt Start The Fire

1989song parody templateclassic

Billy Joel's 1989 hit "We Didn't Start the Fire" became one of the internet's most reworked songs, with its rapid-fire list of 20th-century headlines inviting parodies about Star Wars, Marvel, Homestuck, video games and Trump-era news cycles.

parody song memessnowclone memesmusic memesearworm memesexploitable templates

Overview

"We Didn't Start the Fire" is a 1989 pop rock single by Billy Joel whose verses rattle off more than 100 headline names and events from 1949 to 1989 in a fast, near-monotone cadence1. That structure, a list of proper nouns wedged into a strict meter and broken up by a repeating chorus, is basically pre-built for rewriting, and it turned the song into one of the internet's favorite parody templates3.

The meme version is straightforward: pick any subject dense with names and dates (a fandom, a decade, a news cycle, a company's scandals) and cram it into Joel's cadence while keeping the "we didn't start the fire, it was always burnin'" chorus intact2. Because the original chorus stays put, listeners recognize the source instantly, which is why the joke still works when the verses are about Homestuck characters or Marvel villains3.

How It Spread

Television handled the earliest widely seen parodies. The Simpsons closed the "Gump Roast" episode (Season 13, Episode 17) in 2002 with "They'll Never Stop the Simpsons," and The Office aired "Ryan Started the Fire" in the Season 2 episode "The Fire" in 20053. Family Guy went back to the well in the Season 11 episode "Bigfat" (2013), and Parks and Recreation used a botched Leslie Knope rendition in "Leslie and Ron" (Season 7, Episode 4, 2015)3.

Online, the format spread through parody videos and acapella groups. Cornell's Cayuga's Waiters released "We Didn't Go to Harvard" in 2003, San Francisco acapella group The Richter Scales released "Here Comes Another Bubble" in October 2007 and won the 2008 Webby Award for Online Film & Video in the Viral category, and CollegeHumor put out "We Didn't Start the Flame War" in April 20093. Fan communities kept riffing: PopeFriction's "The Wii Didn't Start the Fire" walked through video game history in November 2010, and Homestuck fans uploaded "You Can't Fight the Homestuck" in July 20123.

Twitter picked up the format hard after the 280-character limit expansion. On November 17th, 2017, @juliareinstein4 posted a news-summary parody that pulled roughly 870 retweets and 4,400 likes, and on February 28th, 2018, @themaxburns hit around 10,000 retweets and 33,000 likes with a Trump-administration version that kicked off a wave of imitators3. Vox published a video parody of Trump-era headlines the day before, on February 27th, 20183. Fall Out Boy released a full studio cover on June 28th, 2023 that rewrote the verses to cover 1989 through 2023, drawing mixed reactions online for its non-chronological ordering and rhyming pairings like "Oklahoma City bomb" with "Pokémon"5.

How to Use This Meme

The template is a rewrite job, not a remix. Writers typically pick a subject deep in proper nouns (a franchise, a decade, a company's scandal list, a fandom's plot), stuff those names into Joel's staccato meter in the verses, and leave the chorus untouched so the reference lands. Common convention is to close on a punchline noun and a fake-tired "I can't take it anymore" line, mirroring Joel's original ending3.

Frequently Asked Questions

We Didnt Start The Fire

1989song parody templateclassic

Billy Joel's 1989 hit "We Didn't Start the Fire" became one of the internet's most reworked songs, with its rapid-fire list of 20th-century headlines inviting parodies about Star Wars, Marvel, Homestuck, video games and Trump-era news cycles.

parody song memes snowclone memes music memes earworm memes exploitable templates

Overview

"We Didn't Start the Fire" is a 1989 pop rock single by Billy Joel whose verses rattle off more than 100 headline names and events from 1949 to 1989 in a fast, near-monotone cadence1. That structure, a list of proper nouns wedged into a strict meter and broken up by a repeating chorus, is basically pre-built for rewriting, and it turned the song into one of the internet's favorite parody templates3.

The meme version is straightforward: pick any subject dense with names and dates (a fandom, a decade, a news cycle, a company's scandals) and cram it into Joel's cadence while keeping the "we didn't start the fire, it was always burnin'" chorus intact2. Because the original chorus stays put, listeners recognize the source instantly, which is why the joke still works when the verses are about Homestuck characters or Marvel villains3.

How It Spread

Television handled the earliest widely seen parodies. The Simpsons closed the "Gump Roast" episode (Season 13, Episode 17) in 2002 with "They'll Never Stop the Simpsons," and The Office aired "Ryan Started the Fire" in the Season 2 episode "The Fire" in 20053. Family Guy went back to the well in the Season 11 episode "Bigfat" (2013), and Parks and Recreation used a botched Leslie Knope rendition in "Leslie and Ron" (Season 7, Episode 4, 2015)3.

Online, the format spread through parody videos and acapella groups. Cornell's Cayuga's Waiters released "We Didn't Go to Harvard" in 2003, San Francisco acapella group The Richter Scales released "Here Comes Another Bubble" in October 2007 and won the 2008 Webby Award for Online Film & Video in the Viral category, and CollegeHumor put out "We Didn't Start the Flame War" in April 20093. Fan communities kept riffing: PopeFriction's "The Wii Didn't Start the Fire" walked through video game history in November 2010, and Homestuck fans uploaded "You Can't Fight the Homestuck" in July 20123.

Twitter picked up the format hard after the 280-character limit expansion. On November 17th, 2017, @juliareinstein4 posted a news-summary parody that pulled roughly 870 retweets and 4,400 likes, and on February 28th, 2018, @themaxburns hit around 10,000 retweets and 33,000 likes with a Trump-administration version that kicked off a wave of imitators3. Vox published a video parody of Trump-era headlines the day before, on February 27th, 20183. Fall Out Boy released a full studio cover on June 28th, 2023 that rewrote the verses to cover 1989 through 2023, drawing mixed reactions online for its non-chronological ordering and rhyming pairings like "Oklahoma City bomb" with "Pokémon"5.

How to Use This Meme

The template is a rewrite job, not a remix. Writers typically pick a subject deep in proper nouns (a franchise, a decade, a company's scandal list, a fandom's plot), stuff those names into Joel's staccato meter in the verses, and leave the chorus untouched so the reference lands. Common convention is to close on a punchline noun and a fake-tired "I can't take it anymore" line, mirroring Joel's original ending3.

Frequently Asked Questions