With his hit song “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” Billy Joel managed to cover 40 years of history in roughly four minutes, beginning with Harry Truman’s presidency in the late 1940s and concluding with the “cola wars” that extended into the 1980s.
Although Joel has often criticized the song, at least from a melodic standpoint, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” was a massive success, becoming the singer’s third single to hit No. 1 in the U.S., per Billboard.
Now, with the recent death of French actress/singer Brigitte Bardot, only three people referenced in Joel’s 1989 hit are still alive.
Only 3 living people left in ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’
Of the 50-plus people referenced in “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” just three remain living, according to a music fan who created a detailed chart and shared it on Reddit’s r/dataisbeautiful subreddit.
Reddit user u/cavedave has provided a visual representation of the notable figures Joel names in his hit song.
“Line starts when someone is born. Ends when they die. And a dot for when they did the thing they were mentioned for in the song,” u/cavedave shared in a recent post.
The three names on the chart whose lines don’t yet have an end: musicians Chubby Checker and Bob Dylan; and Bernhard Goetz, who shot four Black teenagers on a New York subway in 1984.
Both Checker and Dylan are 84, and Goetz is 78.
Fall Out Boy’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ remake
A few years ago, Fall Out Boy picked up where Joel left off, taking listeners on a ride from 1989 through 2023. Music icons like Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly were swapped for Prince and Michael Jackson; sports figures like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle were replaced with LeBron James and Tiger Woods; and “Catcher in the Rye” gave way to “Harry Potter” and “Twilight.”
“I thought about (Joel’s) song a lot when I was younger,” Fall Out Boy bassist Peter Wentz said in a statement attached to the official lyric video on YouTube. “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.”
The rock band’s version is about 30 seconds shorter than the original and has two fewer verses. It references 80 notable figures and events compared to Joel’s 100-plus, and unlike the original, it does not move chronologically, as the Deseret News reported.
Joel was supportive of the update, though he has long been vocal about his distaste for his own hit.
“It’s really not much of a song,” he once said. “If you take the melody by itself, terrible, it’s like a dentist drill.”
What is Billy Joel up to?
Joel released “Turn the Lights Back On” in 2024 — his first original song in nearly two decades — signifying a new chapter of sorts for the singer-songwriter.
But in 2025, the 76-year-old performer canceled several stadium shows — including a highly anticipated stop in Salt Lake City — following a diagnosis of Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, a brain disorder he said had been “exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance,” as the Deseret News reported.
“While I regret postponing any shows, my health must come first,” Joel shared in a March 11 Instagram post. “I look forward to getting back on stage and sharing the joy of live music with our amazing fans. Thank you for your understanding.”
The singer recently performed for the first time since the diagnosis, joining the Billy Joel tribute band, Turnstiles, on Friday for two songs, USA Today reported.
“I wasn’t planning on working tonight,” Joel said as he joined the band and began to play, per USA Today. His daughters, Della and Remy, danced beside him during the appearance, which included performances of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and “Big Shot.”
For Turnstiles frontman Tony Monaco, it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of moment.
“I couldn’t have asked for more. It was fun. It was exhilarating,” Monaco told Spin magazine. “It was something I’ll never forget as long as I live.”
“He’s not 100%, but his voice was strong, and I do think he’s going to come back,” Monaco said at a later point during the interview. “He may not do it on such a grand scale or get up from the piano too much, but I know he wants to play again and hasn’t shut the door on doing so. I’m not so sure that this wasn’t a little testing of those waters.”