The latest salvo in internecine has them waging war between millennials and boomers comes from Fall Out Boywho just covered Billy Joel’s headache-inducing earworm “We Didn’t Start the Fire” with an update on events that have transpired in the decades since the song’s release in 1989.
Where Joel’s day-zero cringegasm (take it from me, folks — I was in high school at the time) at least makes his references chronological, Fall Out Boy’s update is all over the map. John Wayne Bobbitt (1993) is linked to the Boston Marathon bombing that took place 20 years later. I can’t tell if “Keaton Batman/Bush v. Gore” means the 1989 Tim Burton movie or The flashbut anyway, they are at least ten years apart.
Even worse is the tastelessness in lyrics like “Shinzo Abe blown away”, then George Floyd rhyming with Metroid. Listening to this made me feel as unhappy as Hank Hill did in the king of the Hill religious rock episode: “You’re not making Christianity better, you’re making rock ‘n’ roll worse!”
Anyway, the single is out now. Listen if you dare; we really don’t recommend it. If you can forgive them for this, Fall Out Boy will be touring North America this summer (Dallas tonight, Phoenix Friday) and Europe in the fall.