We Didn't Start The Fire ~ 1949 ~ Johnnie Ray

We Didn't Start The Fire

sung by: Billy Joel

 

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe.

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye,"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen,

 Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye!

 

Chorus:

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.

 

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev,
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez.

Chorus

 

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide, Oh-oh-oh.

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia,
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo.

Chorus

 

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?

Chorus

 

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz, Hypodermics on the shore,

 China's under martial law, Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore.

 

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire...

 

 

1949

Johnnie Ray

 

 

 

     Johnnie Ray was a rising singer during the late 1940's and early 1950's.  He was born January 10, 1927 in Oregon and died February 24, 1990 at the age of 63 in Los Angeles.  He was a pioneer to today's rock and roll music.  He created his own style on stage which young American's liked.

     As a boy John Ray was a typical fun loving, free-spirited young man.  He was part of the boy scouts.  At one camp gathering while he was 13 years old an accident happened that left him deaf in his right ear.  The campers were holding tightly to an edge of a blanket while tossing one member up into the air.  It was Johnnie's turn.  He was tossed high into the air but the campers lost their grip on the blanket and Johnnie plummeted to the ground.  A hard drinking straw ended up getting lodged into his right ear and he lost 50% of his hearing right there.  He never told his parents what had happened thinking that his hearing would be restored.  It never did. 

     People say that it was due to his hearing loss that give Johnnie his unique sound.  He had to over-enunciate lyrics in his songs so he could hear them.  His fans, not aware that he was purposely doing this because of his hearing loss, liked how it sounded.  He also started to do something new while onstage.  Most singers would stand behind the microphone singing in a proper manner.  Johnnie rebelled with that method.  He was one of the first singers to take the microphone off the stand and hold it in his hand.  He used the whole stage to perform on while interacting with the audience members by reaching out to them. 

     Johnnie Ray got his start in a Detroit at the Flame Showbar.  His first hit was in 1951 with the song "Whiskey and Gin."  It wasn't a big hit as his hit "Cry" and "The Little White Cloud That Cried" that followed the next year.  He was even know to cry during these songs which gave him the nickname The Nobob of Sob and The Cry Guy.  It wasn't long before Hollywood wanted Johnnie Ray to be seen on the big picture.  In 1954 he starred in "There's No Business Like Show Business".  He played in a few more movies and over dozens of appearances on television.  Johnnie Ray and Doris Day did several duets together one called "Let Walk That A-Way." In Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start The Fire" their names were united again in the same verse of this song.  His music career was short lived in the United States.  Fans started to turn their attention to the British invasion of music.  So he found fans outside of the United States and toured in Asia, Australia and Europe.   

     The boy scout character in Johnnie Ray disappeared as he got into some trouble with the law very early in his career while singing in Detroit.  In 1951, he was arrested for paying for favors from a male prostitute.  This was right before his rise to fame so it mostly got pushed under the rug.  In 1959, he was arrested again and it went to trial for the same thing, also in Detroit.  He was found not guilty. 

     Since being openly gay was not as popular in the 1950's as it is today Johnnie Ray tried to hide it.  He even married once.  His wife, knowing he was gay, was quoted saying to a friend that she "would straighten it out."  Obviously that didn't work since they divorced 1954. 

     His songs and memory faded away from American society for a bit until Dexys Midnight Runner's song "Come On Eileen" mentioned Johnny Ray in the first verse.  Even the song pays tribute by showing his picture as he exits a plane in London as fans scream wildly at him. 

"Come On Eileen"

(Come On Eileen)
(Come On Eileen)

Poor old Johnny Ray
Sounded sad upon the radio
But he moved a million hearts in mono
Our mothers cried
Sang along
Who'd blame them
You've grown, so grown
Now I must say more than ever
(Come On Eileen)
Too-ra-loo-ra, too-ra-loo-rye, aye
And we can sing just like our fathers

     Billy Idol also  mentioned Johnnie Ray near the end of  his song "Don't Need A Gun." 

You will always be crying yeah
Oh you will always be dying
Oh you will always be dying

Elvis a fight the dying light
Johnny Ray he's always crying
Gene Vincent he cried who slapped John, John, John 

Van Morrison also mentions him in the middle of one of his songs, "Sometimes We Cry."

Gonna put me in a jacket, and take me away
Im not gonna fake it like johnnie ray
Sometimes we live, sometimes we die
Sometimes we cry, sometimes we cry

      Before Johnnie Ray died from liver failure due to his heavy drinking he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to the music industry. 

 

 

Sources:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnnie_Ray
http://www.johnnieray.com/
http://johnnierayarchives.com/Home_Page.php
http://www.johnnieray.com/bio.html
http://www.songsandmemories.com/johnnie-ray.html
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/dexysmidnightrunners/comeoneileen.html
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/billy_idol/dont_need_a_gun.html
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/v/van_morrison/sometimes_we_cry.html