We Didn't Start The Fire ~ 1949 ~ Walter Winchell

                                                                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

Walter Winchell

 

 

 

     Walter Winchell was pretty much the inventor of the gossip columns in newspapers as well as a popular voice heard on the radio.  Walter Winchell was also the narrator in the show "The Untouchables" that aired from 1959 to 1963.  He enjoyed pushing the limit and ruining peoples lives by the information he dishes out on both his articles and his radio shows. 

     Walter Winchell was born with a Jewish heritage on April 7, 1897 in New York City.  He dropped out of school in the 6th grade to become a second rate vauderville singer.  Around 1919 he started to turn his attention to writing.  He wrote a column called "Stage Whispers" for a small paper that was nothing more than gossip.  Through connections he worked his way to writing for the Daily Mirror  with the column titled "On Broadway".  Many readers would purchase the publication just for Winchell's column. 

     He became very popular with Americans with his show biz gossip. In 1930 he went on the radio for the first time doing Sunday night shows.  In 1948 he had the top radio show with over 20 million listeners sitting by their radio's waiting to see what he had to say next.  He had a style about himself that people liked when he went on air.  He had a staccato voice with an average of 197 words per minute followed with a clicking telegraph key that gave an aurora of some sort of emergency to his gossip.  He would start every show saying, "Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea." 

     Throughout his years he ended up making up words and coining phrases to enhance his gossip.  He started the term "G-man" which we all use today.  "Making whoopee" was another term he used for people engaged in the action who weren't entirely in love.  A few other phrases are "Tell it to a judge", "giggle water" (alcohol), "flicker" (movie), and "Chicagorilla" which is a gangster from Chicago.  He even coined the phrase, "America - love it or leave it."  Listeners enjoyed hearing how he would put new terms and phrases in to use. 

     Although the general public loved Walter Winchell many celebrities have learned to fear him as he spoke freely about their lives that can damage their reputation.  In 1949 he assaulted James Forrestal who was the Secretary of Defense because Winchell didn't agree to his policies.  He even verbally attacked Josephine Baker, a popular black entertainer at the time calling her a Communist.  If he didn't like someone he would call them a Communist or being sexually immoral. 

     Even though Winchell liked to talk about celebrities problems he was not free from his own.  He was married one of the Vauderville performers in 1919.  He was unfaithful and another woman became pregnant.  The couple divorced in 1928.  He moved in with the lady he got pregnant and had 2 more children but the couple never married.  His one daughter, whom they adopted, died from pneumonia at age 9.  His biological son died at age 33 when he shot himself in the mouth on Christmas.  This happened the exact day, 36 years later, from when his daughter died.  His oldest daughter, was mentally unstable and has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals.  At the death of his son Walter Winchell decided to quit radio altogether.  His girlfriend ended up dying just over a year later due to failing heart conditions.  Walter Winchell died in 1972 from prostrate cancer.  He was 74.  There was only one person who attended his funeral and that was his mentally unstable daughter. 

     Walter Winchell opened the doors to celebrity gossip for many years to come.  Today, people are still interested in the personal lives of celebrities and wanting to know what they are doing off screen.  Magazine tabloids and TV shows like TMZ carry on the gossip that America still loves to inquire about.

 

 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Winchell

http://www.ask.com/question/what-did-walter-winchell-do-in-1949

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0934595/bio

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Walter_Winchell.aspx 

http://www.howstuffworks.com/15-terms-popularized-by-walter-winchell.htm