Editing We Didn't Start the Fire (section)

== Critical reception ==
Upon its release, "We Didn't Start the Fire" was met with a mixed response. David Giles from ''[[Music Week]]'' wrote, "Promising return which finds Joel in rockier mood with a very wordy song cramming in references to virtually every major figure and event in the twentieth century. After all that, the message of the lyrics is foggy and confused, but this should certainly see him back in the charts."<ref>{{cite magazine|first=David|last=Giles|url=https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/Music-Week/1989/MW-1989-09-30.pdf|title=Singles|magazine=[[Music Week]]|date=September 30, 1989|page=25|access-date=March 13, 2023}}</ref>

Though the lyrics are rapid-fire with several people and events mentioned in each stanza, there is widespread agreement on the meaning of the lyrics. Steven Ettinger wrote:

{{blockquote|Billy Joel captured the major images, events, and personalities of this half-century in a three-minute song{{nbsp}}... It was pure information overload, a song that assumed we knew exactly what he was singing about{{nbsp}}... What was truly alarming was the realization that we, the listeners, for the most part understood the references.<ref name="247Torah">{{cite book |last = Ettinger |first = Steven |title = Torah 24/7: A Timely Guide for the Modern Spirit |publisher = Devorah Publishing Company |year = 2003 |pages = 2 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=PFlr902_FY8C |isbn = 1-930143-73-7 |access-date = April 2, 2010 }}</ref>}}

After a cover by [[Fall Out Boy]] was released in 2023 to negative critical reception, the song was once again brought to the forefront, and modern critics panned even the original song as one of Joel's worst in his entire catalog.<ref>{{cite web |title=The 33 Things Wrong With Fall Out Boy's Updated "We Didn't Start the Fire"|url=https://slate.com/culture/2023/06/we-didnt-start-the-fire-fall-out-boy-lyrics.html |website=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |access-date=September 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230628174140/https://slate.com/culture/2023/06/we-didnt-start-the-fire-fall-out-boy-lyrics.html |archive-date=June 28, 2023 |date=June 28, 2023 |quote=Billy Joel’s original is awful—even Joel himself compares its melody to a dentist’s drill |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Good |first1=Owen S. |title=Somehow, Fall Out Boy made an all-time bad song even worse |url=https://www.polygon.com/23777099/fall-out-boy-we-didnt-start-the-fire-lyrics-cover |website=[[Polygon (website)|Polygon]] |access-date=September 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701184247/https://www.polygon.com/23777099/fall-out-boy-we-didnt-start-the-fire-lyrics-cover |archive-date=July 1, 2023 |date=June 28, 2023 |quote=Where Joel’s day-zero cringegasm... |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=D'Andrea |first1=Christian |title=Fall Out Boy's We Didn't Start the Fire means we live in a circle of hell that would leave Dante breathless |url=https://ftw.usatoday.com/2023/06/fallout-boy-we-didnt-start-the-fire-so-bad-this-is-hell |website=[[USA Today]] |access-date=September 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230629184833/https://ftw.usatoday.com/2023/06/fallout-boy-we-didnt-start-the-fire-so-bad-this-is-hell |archive-date=June 29, 2023 |date=June 28, 2023 |quote=So, Fall Out Boy decided to update and somehow make worse the worst Billy Joel song...}}</ref>