Monday, January 6, 2014

We Didn't Start The Fire ~ 1949 ~ Red China

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
Red China
 
 
 
 
     Red China is the term given to the People's Republic of China which is a communist nation in Asia.  During this time China was in a Civil War.  It was between Nationalist Forces (Kuomintang) led by Chiang Kai-Shek and the Communist Party of China led by Mao Zedong.  The Nationalist Forces were pretty much the ruling party since 1928 when the Civil War broke out.  The Communist forces hung out in the northern areas of China while the Nationalist maintained control of the southern part of China. The northern part of China had their own money, their own military.  It was as if there were two China's.  The North against the South. 
 
                                                                             Mao Zedong and the 
                                       Communist Flag                      
 
                  

 
                                                           Chaing Kai-Shek and the
                                                                Nationalist Flag
           
                                                                          
                                                                                                                                

     After Japan left the area from WWII both the Nationalist and Communist wanted to regain control of the area left behind.  In 1946 the Nationalist were over 4 million strong while the Communist were only over 1 million strong.  By the end in 1949 those numbers were practically reversed as the Nationalists were almost one and one half million strong while the Communist were 4 million strong.  The Communist Party came down upon the Nationalist like ants to a picnic. 
     In 1949, Chiang Kai-Shek knew they were beat.  He gathered up over 600,000 of his troops and over 2 million refugees and made their way to the island of Taiwan.  Mao Zedong proclaimed People's Republic of China and China became a communist nation.   

 

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