Billy Joel has responded to Fall Out Boy‘s updated cover of his song ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’.
Last month, the pop-punk band released a new version of Joel’s 1989 Number One hit, which originally included brief references to 118 significant political, cultural and scientific events between the years of Joel’s birth in 1949 and the song’s release in 1989.
In the updated version, the original lyrics were replaced with standout events from where the song left off in 1989 to 2023.
While speaking with BBC Radio 2’s Zoe Ball following his headline performance at London’s BST Hyde Park this weekend, Joel said: Everybody’s been wanting to know when there’s going to be an updated version of it, because my song started in ’49 and ended in ’89 — it was a 40-year span.”
He continued: “Everybody said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to do a part two?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’ve already done part one.’ So, Fall Out Boy, go ahead. Great, take it away.”
In a statement shared around the song’s release, the band said: “I thought about this song a lot when I was younger. All these important people and events – some that disappeared into the sands of time – others that changed the world forever. So much has happened in the span of the last 34 years – we felt like a little system update might be fun. Hope you like our take on it.”
Recently, Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz explained why COVID was not mentioned in the cover.
Discussing why they left out references to COVID, Wentz said: “It’s like, that’s all anybody talked… You know what I mean? I don’t know. It felt like there was a couple of things that felt like a little on the nose. And then there were a couple of things where it was like … Bush V. Gore, we needed the rhyme.”
In other news, the pop-punk band are featured on the song ‘Electric Touch’ from Taylor Swift’s LP ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Verson)’.