We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel came on the radio recently, and it dawned on me that the song almost feels like a reworking of the "bunch of pop culture/historical references all bundled together in a cheesy song" DNA from LBWL (the song); I wonder if it ever occurred to Mike after hearing We Didn't Start the Fire (which I'm sure he did, it was/is played everywhere) that Billy Joel sort of lifted the idea he did first a decade prior.
I do realize that Mike didn't even write the lyrics to his own song. Nevertheless it seems like he was just attempting to pull the heartstrings of a listener or something, although it was a much more clunky and ineffective manner than the song that Billy Joel had major success with it. Was LBWL the first song by a famous artist to have that type of a theme? Or maybe Mike's song in and of itself was ripping off the idea of other earlier songs?
Of course various songs over the years by famous artists reference pop culture events, but I'm talking about a ridiculous mouthful of pop-culture events just spewing out one after the other in the lyrics, and that being essentially the totality of the song.
That is a damn good question! I was going to say "Creeque Alley" by the M&P's but that's telling the story of their own band's history, and it's not running off at the mouth citing other historical events.
I'll keep my ears open, but I'm thinking the boomer generation was the one who started the whole nostalgia trip in the 70's, sparked by American Graffitti being popular and profitable and then Happy Days on top. The Beach Boys rode that wave pretty well too, although what amazes me is the "nostalgia" was between 10-15 years old at that time! "All Summer Long" wasn't even a decade old when Lucas used it for the end credits.
Seriously, and a serious question: Is anybody looking back on 2007's music and pop culture with anything remotely close to how the "Fabulous 50's" was fawned over in the mid-70's?
I remember exactly when I first heard "We Didn't Start The Fire" and first seeing the video on MTV too. I thought it was fun at the time, but honestly that song gets annoying fast.
And someone should do a tally of how many Mike Love lyrics do the nostalgia-remember-good ol' days theme and have a percentage of how many "looking back..." themes he's written in his lyrics. It's definitely a go-to theme.
As to the question, again that's tough. But I doubt much came before the 70's because the generation previous to the Boomers wanted to move on and look forward rather than fondly reminisce and write songs about what happened in the 30's and 40's...unless something can be found in that odd Roaring 20's dancehall/vaudeville revival in the mid to late 60's.
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