Anyone agree with me on this theory?

Question

I'm comparing Don McClean's "American Pie" with Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." I would think both of them are representations of American history and culture and that WDSTF is the "American Pie" of the late 80s-early90s (not sure when the song was released).

Anyone agree with me and/or care to provide some insightful commentary? Both songs have a great deal of symbolism; AP has more symbolism and WDSTF has more history to it.

Answer 1

"American Pie" is more specific in scope, while "WDSTF" is much more general.

While Don McLean has never gone on record to explain his lyrics to AP, most analysts believe it's about the changing state of rock music in the sixties. "The day the music died" was the day Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper, all early rock pioneers, died in a plane crash. McLean then goes on to discuss the current state of rock music (at the time)... references to the Beatles ("while Sergeants played a marching tune.", Mick Jagger "Satan on the sideline in a cast" - referring to Mick's broken arm at the time), Janis Joplin ("I knew a girl who sang the blues," etc. McLean seems to be bemoaning rock's loss of innocence, going from things like Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" to the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" in just a few years.

"WDSTF," however, came about as a result of Billy Joel's conversation with a young person, who told him (in all of his or her teenage wisdom) that nothing important had happened during Billy's lifetime. Billy turned 40 in 1989, and he began to look back at the previous 40 years, and wrote what I consider to be a masterpiece (that I use for the Knowledge Bowl team I coach at my school to teach about late 20th century history). He simply goes through every year from 1949-1969, and simply lists several important political and social events for each year. (Personally, I was always bummed that he began to generalize once he got to 1969 - rather than focusing on each year, he takes a whole verse for '69-'89, and, being born in '69, I would have really enjoyed a year-by-year rundown as he had done with the previous 20 years).

So, to compare the two songs is probably a bit off, as they have very different purposes and intents. One is about the history of rock and roll, the other is about history, plain and simple.

Answer 2

American Pie was about the death of 3 musicians in a plane crash. The term "the day the music died" refers to February 3rd, 1959, the date of the plane crash. The next morning, as Don was cutting open a stack of newspapers to deliver on his paper route ("Bad news on the doorstep, I couldn't take one more step") he saw that the 3 had died and it later inspired him to write "American Pie". The term "American Pie" has been widely debated over why it was the title of the song, it's thought that that was the name of the plane that crashed but that was later proven incorrect. For more info see the source.

But "We Didn't Start the Fire" is kind of the same in that it reflects back on issues. The lyrics speek for themselves.

But in direct comparison I wouldn't say they're entirely alike although they are in a way. "American Pie" was mainly about loss along with some history but "We Didn't Start the Fire" was pretty much entirely about history. Plus they were released several years apart and had 2 different view points coming from 2 different times in rock 'n' roll history.

Answer 3

Yeah I guess you sort of have a point. AP is more of ode to Music history while WDSTF deals more with word events. Both excellent songs. I love the symbolism in AP.

Answer 4

I don't think that WDSTF is comparable to American Pie. I think Hotel California is a better example.

Answer 5

i definately agree