Who Remembers the Fire?

As many Americans did over the Easter weekend, my family went on a road trip. While driving, my daughter and I like to engaged in the traditional road trip pastime of singing along with the radio. I don’t want to brag, but I have karaoke quality voice (take that however you want) and at this point in my life I have a pretty in-depth knowledge of quite a few song lyrics.

One song that I know quite well is Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.“ As a longstanding history nut, I’ve loved this song since it was first released in 1989. If you’ve never heard the song, it’s a chronological list of events and people that Billy Joel remembers from his life. 

Born in 1949, a lot of Billy’s memories relate to the 1950s and 60s. I was born in… a later year… (yeah, that’s the ticket) so I don’t have firsthand memories of most of the milestones mentioned in the song’s lyrics, but I did learn about a lot of them through history and pop culture. 

As a humble brag, I learned almost all of the song’s lyrics from singing along repeatedly over about 30 years, although some I continue to fumble. A couple I really didn’t know until I looked at the lyrics as I wrote this. A few others I learned from listening to some episodes of the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” podcast, a series that took each lyrical mention individually. I never finished the series, but I did learn a few things. For example, what I heard as “stockbroker homicide” was actually “Starkweather homicide,” a reference to a 1958 murder spree by Charles Starkweather.

The name “Prokofiev” was also a lyric that I mumbled over until tonight. I looked it up and Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian composer who died in 1953. Until now, I kind of thought that the line went something like “Nasser in Prokofiev” instead of “and.” I thought Prokofiev might have been a place. 

Despite a few lingering mysteries, I could probably write at least a paragraph about most of the lyrics in the song. Of the remainder, I at least know what most of the other lyrics refer to. But then again, I’m an avid reader, a history nut, and storehouse of useless trivia.

As I sang along with Billy over the weekend, I pondered that some of the events and people that dominate our days probably won’t be remembered in another 30 years, let alone 100. What often seems important to us now is just a fleeting moment. 

Sergei Prokofiev was important to Billy Joel, but how many people know who he is today? How many people remember Charles Starkweather or the 10 people he murdered?

When the song gets to the 70s and 80s, a lot of personal memories are triggered. The lyrics come at me like headlines that I remember reading and watching on television, but while “rock and roll” needs little explanation for younger listeners, I’m sure that few have any idea what the “cola wars” reference is all about. I know the meaning of “Bernie Goetz” and “hypodermics on the shore” because I remember those stories when they first broke, but I’m sure that they seem like nonsensical terms to younger listeners.

That got me thinking: How much of the “big” stories that dominate our daily lives will turn out to actually be big stories that matter in our lives? Probably not many.

Some of the lyrics of our lives will change the course history like “JFK blown away, what else do I have to say?” Others, like the cola wars, will be quickly forgotten.

The key is to know what matters. The assassination of a president or a war matters in the grand scheme of history. Wars alter the course of nations and impact thousands or millions. 

But Elvis and Prokofiev and “Peyton Place” can also make a big splash at the time. Music and art can touch millions as well, but then it becomes old and is replaced by the next big thing.

And a lot of stuff that makes a big splash doesn’t matter at all. A lot of the stories that I like to call the Outrage Du Jour are simply meant to generate clicks and comments, get the reader fired up, and then be forgotten as the next outrage appears.

Most of the stuff that we sit online and argue about is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Even when the issue is an important one, our internet discussions won’t affect the outcome. 

Even when it comes to elections, you probably aren’t going to win over opposing voters in an internet discussion. Maybe this is why so many partisans don’t even try to persuade people anymore. They just insult and move on.

What’s more, even if you can win over a voter, their vote, especially in a presidential election, doesn’t really matter. If you don’t live in a swing state, it really doesn’t matter who you vote for.

I guess my point is that a lot of the stuff that we think is important really isn’t. Most of the things that consume our day-to-day lives won’t be remembered in a few decades, maybe not even next year.

So spend your time wisely. We are each allotted with a limited amount of time on earth, and considering that, time is a terrible thing to kill.

But don’t completely check out and complain as Solomon did that “everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Some things do matter. The key is determining what matters, what doesn’t, and not confusing the two.

People matter. Our impact on our spouses and children matter. 

And yes, voting and politics do matter in the aggregate. It’s just that your vote is worth most in the smallest elections rather than the big presidential elections that everyone cares about.

What will matter in 100 years? There is an updated version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Fall Out Boy that offers some suggestions.

I think that there are some JFK-being-blown-away level issues being decided right now. Will we let Vladimir Putin dismantle Europe piece by piece? Will we let Islamic radicals slaughter peopled they assume to be Jewish? Should we let China have its way with Taiwan? Will we elect a man who may well dismantle more than 200 years of mostly-peaceful constitutional government?

Some things matter. And it matters which side you’re on. 

Just as few people would admit to being a segregationist in the Civil Rights Era (the “Little Rock” and “Ole Miss” lyrics), I think there will come a day when few people will want to admit that they were sympathetic to Putin or Trump. They will be like bad memories of how we had a some very close calls. Hopefully, they will be relegated to the footnotes of history. Maybe my kids will have to explain references to the pair in the lyrics of some future cover of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

And if, one day, I have a band that writes that new cover, I hope that band is called the Space Monkey Mafia.