proof of age--the complete list

[James E. Clapp]

Well, we've certainly established that traumatic memory is a very
individual matter--and perhaps also that there is a relatively narrow
age range in which humans are particularly susceptible to it.
Practically everybody remembers *something* that happened from
adolescence to late teens (the thing depending a lot on what they
happened to be interested in, e.g., rock and roll, space travel).  First
love, first heartbreak, first great trauma... they all seem to involve
the same mechanisms.

In any event, as the person who inadvertently started this thread (with
an anecdote under the subject "Terrorist Tax" on 2/3/2000), let me wrap
it up by giving the complete list, once and for all, of traumatic,
iconic, or otherwise significant names and events from 1949 to 1989,
courtesy of Billy Joel.

Well, almost complete.  Everyone will bemoan the absence of a few
favorites;  I myself am surprised that he got John F. Kennedy in twice
but missed the JFK-MLK-RFK trilogy.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this transcription; it's nothing
official.  This is copied from
http://witten.hartwick.edu/students/ronin/bj-wdstf.html

James E. Clapp

------------------------------------------------------------------------

We Didn't Start the Fire

----- (1949) -----
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

----- (1950) -----
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

----- (1951) -----
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye

----- (1952) -----
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

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

----- (1953) -----
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

----- (1954) -----
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

----- (1955) -----
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

----- (1956) -----
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, trouble in the Suez

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

----- (1957) -----
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge on the River Kwai

----- (1958) -----
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

----- (1959) -----
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

----- (1960) -----
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

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

----- (1961) -----
Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

----- (1962) -----
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

----- (1963) -----
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

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

----- (1964 - 1989) -----
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

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

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...


Lyrics by Billy Joel

The song "We Didn't Start the Fire" is from the 1989 album Storm Front,
(Columbia).