Fall Out Boy Update “We Didn’t Start The Fire” With Events From The Past 30+ Years
Well, this is happening. Fall Out Boy have delivered the millennial “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” Some might say the 1975 already did that, but FOB have gone a more literal route with it. The emo superstars covered Billy Joel’s 1989 chart-topping smash, which famously strings together a rapid-fire assortment of Cold War-era historical word-pictures that merge into a blur of baby boomer nostalgia. But Pete Wentz and friends have updated the lyrics to reference events from 1989 to the present.
The first thing you need to need to know is that the lyrics are not even close to chronological, so that sucks. Like, mentioning LeBron James before Michael Jordan? What! Otherwise, Fall Out Boy did a good job of covering the ’90s, ’00s, ’10s, and ’20s thus far. Naturally, MySpace, the platform most closely associated with Fall Out Boy’s rise to fame, is one of the references. So are their peers My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade and their hometown Chicago Cubs ending their historic World Series draught. Shout out to Captain Planet for getting the leadoff slot.
On Twitter, Pete Wentz writes, “I thought about this song a lot when I was younger. All these important people and events- some that disappeared into the sands of time- others that changed the world forever. So much has happened in the span of the last 34 years- we felt like a little system update might be fun. Hope you like our take on it…”
Listen below.
A limited edition 7″ of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” is available for pre-order at Fall Out Boy’s site.