Famous People in "We Didn't Start The Fire" Quiz

Answer:

"We Didn't Start The Fire" has a series of verses listing cultural and historic landmark events and personalities of the latter 20th century. And the chorus reminds us of the concept that many the conflicts around the world may seem like they were ignited by the current generation, but instead there has actually been an ongoing pattern generation after generation. The song reached Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and continues to get a lot of radio play as well as some parodies.

LBJ, Leopold and Loeb, Sandra Dee, Lucille Ball, Sinatra, Chuck Berry are not among the famous people mentioned in this song's lyrics.

Six of the famous people in this collection are mentioned in the very opening lyric:
"Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,
Joe McCarthy...."
And all but one of the rest of the famous people mentioned by name are from the second verse of the song:
"Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye."

Then comes the chorus:
"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."

Then comes the next verse in which Malenkov is mentioned. Who is he?
Georgy Malenkov was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1955, following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953. Malenkov was a significant figure during the Cold War, pushing for a shift in Soviet economic policy to focus on consumer goods and improving the standard of living. But Malenkov didn't last long in charge--Nikita Khrushchev had become the First Secretary of the Communist Party by 1955, and then he replaced Malenkov as Premier, and Malenkov was removed from office.

On the other side of the Pacific, Harry S Truman was 33rd president of the United States from 1945 until 1953, when Malenkov assumed Soviet leadership. Truman was a member of the Democratic Party and, like Malenkov, assumed office following the death of the previous leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Like Harry S Truman, Eisenhower is also mentioned in the lyrics, and also became president, following Truman and serving from 1953 to 1961. He was a five-star U.S. Army general and was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War II.

In the music world, Johnnie Ray was one of the significant performers who are thought of as rock and roll predecessors, for which Billy Joel must be very grateful for. "Mr. Emotion" as Johnnie Ray was nicknamed, had a huge breakout song with "Cry" which came out in 1952 and hit Number One on the Billboard charts.
Johnnie Ray had a very theatrically broad emotional singing style. Another music figure of the era with a broad theatricality, but in a different way, was pianist Liberace. He was one of the highest paid entertainers from the 1950s to 1970s, and was known for his theatrical performance wardrobe, and candelabra perched upon his grand piano-he was fittingly called "Mr. Showmanship".

Another music star, Doris Day is in the lyrics - she was a 1950s cultural icon of film, music, and television. Some of her key film roles were in "Calamity Jane" (1953) which highlighted her acting and singing talents, "Love Me or Leave Me" (1955), "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956) and "Pillow Talk" (1959) which was a top box-office attraction. She was one of the top female vocalists of the 1950s, and along with her wholesome image, she became a beloved American symbol, and was welcomed into American homes with TV's "The Doris Day Show", from 1968 to 1973.
Marlon Brando was perhaps the flip side of that silver screen coin, playing darker roles such as his Best Actor Oscar-winning role of Terry Malloy, an ex-boxer in 1954's "On The Waterfront". And speaking of boxers, in addition to Brando being mentioned in the lyrics, so is Marciano as in Rocky Marciano, the only heavyweight boxing champion (1952-1956) to finish his career (1947-1956) undefeated with a record of 49-0. Fellow boxer Sugar Ray Robinson (Sugar Ray in the lyrics), also ruled the era, fighting from 1940 to 1965, and holding the world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951. He was the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times.

Also making a mark in the sports world around then was baseball's Joe DiMaggio centerfielder for the iconic New York Yankees his entire career from 1936 to 1951, leading the team to 9 World Series Championships in that span.

Walter Winchell in the lyrics, is in some sense a stand-in for Billy Joel, as Mr. Winchell was a gossip columnist who combined his journalistic reportage with entertainment, writing in a style that engaged audiences with his slang and vernacular and uncovering entertainment scandals. His support of Joseph McCarthy in that era's Red Scare era, led to Winchell falling out of favor.

Current events back then saw Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the lyrics-mentioned Rosenbergs, who became the first American non-military people to be executed for espionage during peacetime. That was back in 1953 at the renowned Sing Sing prison in New York.

And finally, the philosopher Santayana. George Santayana (1863-1952) taught philosophy at Harvard and was famous for saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And when we think about it, doesn't that pretty much sum up the message behind Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire."