Billy Joel Named 59 People In '80s Hit We Didn't Start The Fire — Only 3 Are Still Alive

Almost everyone mentioned in the 1989 Billy Joel No. 1 hit "We Didn't Start the Fire" is dead. The song, a rhyming, sing-songy, rap-like list of major political and cultural figures (and impactful) events of the 20th century, from the late 1940s to the late 1980s, served as a light lesson (or outline) of modern history. It's all about Billy Joel, a Baby Boomer, rattling off the events and people that shaped the personality and worldview of himself and the other members of his generation, particularly those raised in the United States. 

An impressive undertaking both in lyrical creation and delivery, Joel name-checks a total of 59 people in "We Didn't Start the Fire." Those include household names from across the fame spectrum, such as Harry Truman, Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Malcolm X, John Glenn, and Princess Grace. Many of those people were already dead by the time Joel wrote and sang about them, and 1989 is so far in the past now that nearly all the living individuals cited have now almost totally disappeared, too. As of January 2026, only three people who warranted a mention in "We Didn't Start the Fire" remain among the living.

One of the last subjects mentioned in the last verse of "We Didn't Start the Fire" is one that would've been relatively fresh in the memory of listeners hearing the song during its initial release in 1989. Along with the AIDS crisis and the rise of crack cocaine, Billy Joel cites "Bernie Goetz," the center of a major news story of the 1980s. After he was violently robbed in the New York City subway in 1981, Bernhard Goetz began carrying a gun on his person, which he used in December 1984, shooting four young men he believed were about to mug him.

One of the individuals Goetz shot was left paralyzed by his injuries, and after Goetz fled New York, he reported to police in New Hampshire and was tried on charges of attempted murder. After much legal maneuvering and public debate about the issues related to the case — including rising crime rates, vigilante justice, and the racial politics over a white man opening fire on four Black people — Goetz was convicted in 1987 on a low-level weapons charge and was sentenced to six months in prison. He's periodically emerged from private life, in 2001 unsuccessfully running for Mayor of New York. As of January 2026, Goetz is 78 years old.

"The Twist" is a song from the '60s that hasn't aged well, it could be argued, because it's tied to such a particular moment in American cultural history. Deeply connected to a simple and popular dance of the same name, "The Twist" was the soundtrack to a fad that captivated Boomers in the early part of the 1960s. Billy Joel was about 11 years old when "The Twist" first stormed the pop chart in 1960, as recorded by Chubby Checker. The energetic, high-voiced singer made a career out of encouraging people to dance — he took "The Twist" to No. 1 in 1960, and then again in 1962. He also landed hits with other dance-adjacent tunes, including "Slow Twistin'," "Let's Twist Again," and "Twistin' U.S.A." Checker was a '60s relic by the time Joel uttered his name in "We Didn't Start the Fire" in 1989, despite a minor comeback in the prior year with a remake of "The Twist" featuring the rap group the Fat Boys, an '80s musical act we completely forgot about.

In November 2025, Checker was inducted into the controversial Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in absentia, following years of lobbying efforts to get himself enshrined in the institution. Chubby Checker still performs concerts in the 2020s, well into his 80s.

When "We Didn't Start the Fire" moves into the 1960s in its fifth verse, one of the first people that Billy Joel mentions is Bob Dylan. A song about 20th-century history through the eyes of a Baby Boomer, it would've been incomplete without a nod to Dylan, whose impact on American art and culture can't be overstated. A singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist keeping the traditions of poets and bards alive, Dylan's songs of protest and about modern life gave voice to the feelings of Boomers for decades. He's responsible for such important works as "Like a Rolling Stone," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," and "Tangled Up in Blue." 

Dylan experimented and evolved, and he released acclaimed and essential music well past the '60s, winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1998 for "Time Out of Mind." In 2016, Dylan won the biggest of all lifetime achievement awards when he was bestowed the Nobel Prize in Literature. He'll turn 85 in 2026.