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[-] snappy@lemmy.world 103 points 1 month ago

Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, Bernhard Goetz

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 21 points 1 month ago

If this is a highlander situation my money is definitely on Goetz.

[-] Apeman42@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

And that's when Chubby Checker hits you with The Twist.

[-] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month ago

They'll never see it coming.

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[-] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 month ago

Ages 84, 84, and 78, respectively.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Bernhard Goetz

First time I heard him called Bernhard...

Yeah, Bernie Goetz

I''ve been thinking about Bernie Goetz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x60V0eayiAY

Doomtree - 38 airweight

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[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

Bob Dylan probably doesn't have long, lol

[-] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago

judging by his recent gigs, he may already be gone

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

By "recent", you mean the last 50 years?

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[-] Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

In order of the FMK game, I assume?

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[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 44 points 1 month ago

Also Brigitte Bardot is a racist pos. People, especially media, want to gloss over that because she was hot. Same with how Coco Chanel still gets venerated.

[-] tempest@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 month ago

HP Lovecraft racist or rich white woman born in the 30s racist?

[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago

Marrying the advisor of Jean-Marie Le Pen ( leader of Front Nationale a far-right French political party) type of racist. Plus she called Marie le Pen (daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen and also a fascist) the Joan of Arc of the 21st century in an interview.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

i mean if she lights the pyre

[-] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

HP Lovecraft racist or rich white woman born in the 30s racist?

That's literally the same racism, when do you think HP Lovecraft was living/writing...?

Also, we gotta stop giving old people passes. They have the ability to change, they just choose to be bigots. My 90+ year old grandma wholeheartedly embraces my trans friends even if she doesn't fully understand how or why "Robert" became "Annalise", and she had never interacted with a trans person in her life before then.

Brigitte Bardot was just a racist, xenophobic bitter POS until the end.

[-] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago

Lovecraft's racism was born and fuelled out of fear of the unknown. Bardot's racism is more of the common hate-kind.

[-] tatann@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Uber-racist (and homophobe, anti-feminist, etc...)

She would have been a great asset in the Trump administration

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[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 42 points 1 month ago

The list of suspects narrow...

[-] BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

The long arc of justice will prevail.

[-] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 32 points 1 month ago

The article is light on detail. No actual list of who's in the song.

Here's the full list of 119 references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_references_in_We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 27 points 1 month ago

The song also mentions the Beatles, and I'm sure there's at least one Belgian still in the Congo.

[-] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 month ago

It mentions Beatlemania, which I think we can safely say has died.

And you'd need two Belgians in the Congo.

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Any troubles in the Suez still?

[-] AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 month ago

Has the boat gotten stuck again?

[-] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 26 points 1 month ago

this might be one of the most mildly interestings things ive ever read

[-] GreenCrunch@piefed.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 month ago

Well... since "we" could be interpreted to include Billy Joel and the listener... that's two more!

[-] logicbomb@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

I think including the listener is stretching it. I think it's pretty straightforward that "we" refers to Billy Joel's generation.

[-] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

And any living Belgians who were in the Congo before 1960.

[-] HobbitFoot 20 points 1 month ago

I wish the Fall Out Boy update to the song was good.

[-] Postimo@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 month ago

In Bo Burnham fan circles people joked that That Funny Feeling from Inside is the truer generational update to We Didn't Start the Fire 🥲

[-] Aqarius@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

That's... entirely correct. Jesus.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

What's your issue with it?

I didn't realize the Fall Out Boy version existed before this comment and streamed it. It sounds fairly good, about what I'd expect from a Fall Out Boy update

[-] wjrii@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

The selection of items seems weaker to me, but for me the main sin is that the original is basically chronological, which makes it more impressive that it's a coherent song at all, if a bit overrated and very boomerific. Fallout Boy one just throws shit in at random to make the lines scan and rhyme, so it's very "meh" even as a follow-up. It feels like they kind of didn't understand that the original was a survey of the time period.

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[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 18 points 1 month ago

Did any of those 3 people start the fire?

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[-] FardyCakes@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

I mean some of them weren’t alive even when the song came out.

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago
[-] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 month ago

15 years ago he was in the news suing because someone put out a smartphone app named “Chubby Checker” and that’s was not the sort of association he wanted to his name. 😉

[-] hypnicjerk@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

15 years ago... smartphone app...

[-] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Holy shit, a Fire Punch meme on Lemmy. (read Fire Punch, everyone)

[-] aramis87@fedia.io 7 points 1 month ago

Only three people listed in the song are still alive: Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, and Bernhard Goetz.

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

I know mashups are pretty tired but I always wanted to hear a mashup of "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Prodigy's "Firestarter".

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago
[-] tourist@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

This was an interesting choice of image for the JFK mention.

"JFK blown away" with a link to the Wikipedia page of JFK's assassination alongside a forensic drawing of JFK's head during the event. Wikipedia probably has better alt text, check there.

[-] nemanin@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I mean…only like 7 of them were alive in 1994 in the first place.

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[-] Amuletta@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago
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this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
400 points (97.4% liked)

Mildly Interesting

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